


If we have each other

by Gigi_Bell



Series: Fantasy [14]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Blood and Violence, Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol-centric, Hunger Games, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Soft Park Chanyeol, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:53:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28968630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Bell/pseuds/Gigi_Bell
Summary: Baekhyun could see it, he could feel the predatory eyes leer over him and Chanyeol, and the thought - his own imaginary thought of the president being like a lion - made him shiver.“We welcome you. We salute the courage and your sacrifice. And we wish you a Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor.”Hunger Games ✔️Catching Fire - In Progress
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Series: Fantasy [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055237
Comments: 44
Kudos: 58





	1. The Hunger Games: Part One

The thing about making choices was wondering whether or not they truly mattered. 

Did it matter if you had a warm bed?

Did it matter if you were hungry?

Did it _matter_ if you were family?

To Baekhyun, it mattered. These things mattered so much. And that’s how he ended up here, yelling, screaming. 

His face was red, his veins stuck out on his forehead with the intensity of his scream. 

He saw his own life flash before his eyes - and more importantly - he saw Sehun’s life.

Baekhyun had been six when Sehun was born. 

He remembered how much pain was felt that day, he remembered how his mother refused to see Sehun, and how she retreated from their small, broken down house while Baekhyun was left to clean up the baby.

He’d been _six_ when he had realized that Sehun was his responsibility. 

With a drunk mother, and a recently deceased father, Baekhyun had only one thing that made him happy - _Sehun._

Baekhyun was never the most talkative, he was never one to hang around groups or try to make friends. He was a boy from the Seam after all - nobody wanted a poor boy to be their friend, so he didn’t bother trying.

District Twelve was a poorer district in itself, but the Seam was where the “worthless” people went. The ones who didn’t pull their weight. 

He’d been there ever since the coal mine - District Twelve’s specialty - collapsed and killed his father.

His mother was struck with grief, eight months pregnant, and now lost so much. But she seemed to forget that _Baekhyun_ lost just as much.

They both retreated in on themselves, but in different ways.

His mother retreated to alcohol until she spent all the money they’d gotten from their fathers death, and then she was frozen, and shocked, she spent more time staring at her children and trying to make up for lost time by awkwardly trying to converse.

She was too late, she was years too late.

Baekhyun retreated to the woods. He killed birds and rabbits and _anything_ he could get his hands on with his fathers bow in hand. 

He used to be scared of doing it with Sehun around, but the first time he’d taken his brother out and whistled to scare birds from the trees so they would be visible, Sehun had giggled because he liked whistling, and despite doing something so illegal, Baekhyun was relieved.

Despite doing such a horrible job raising his brother, he was relieved.

And he loved Sehun. 

Baekhyun had given up all of his teenage years for Sehun, he’d spent years jumping back and forth from the fence that led to the woods, the school, and his brother - Baekhyun was the definition of a guardian.

So he couldn’t let this happen.

Just an hour ago Sehun had been laughing and giving him a silly pin that Baekhyun called a _bird_ but Sehun so helpfully, always much smarter than Baekhyun, told him it was a _mockingjay_ and that it was to give him hope.

The thought sprung to his mind with a _mocking_ feeling, because Baekhyun had little to no hope right now.

_“Sehun, age twelve. Please step forward.”_

Baekhyun’s hands twitched at his sides, clutching into his best, light blue cotton top. His mother had tried to be friendly by getting their clothes ready, but in the end it had been himself that brushed Sehun's hair back and teased him about having a crush on a boy in his class. 

His baby brother, who cried when he caught sight of Baekhyun’s bow, because he felt bad thinking of the bunnies his brother had to sell so they could eat.

Sehun, who he’d shared a bed with all years of his brother's young life. 

Sehun. Who was only twelve years old; who still drew him pictures with spare pieces of coal; who whined that Baekhyun squeezed him too tight and kissed his head in front of his friends. 

Sehun was a child. 

A child who fate decided was unworthy to live, because the name written on the paper in District Twelve’s reaping bowl could be any name. 

And it had been Sehun’s.

_“I see we have a young one this year.”_

The comment resonated in Baekhyun’s ears, it vibrated and stung his eardrums, the vibrant, and upbeat tone of their district’s escort set his nerves on end every year.

But especially this one.

Baekhyun nearly allowed his weak knees and spinning head to overwhelm him, but he couldn’t and _wouldn’t,_ because his brothers scared, shrieking, and _pained_ yell snapped him out of it. 

_“Baekhyun! Baek! Baekhyun, no! No!”_

Baekhyun acted before he could think about it, he’d always been this way when Sehun was upset. He reacted before thinking, anything so his baby brother wouldn’t cry - because Sehun never deserved to cry.

“I volunteer!” Baekhyun screamed.

The group of older boys were in the very back; rows and rows of boys blocked him from the podium and stage where the televisions were set up, the screen was still flashing, tearing his heart out of his chest.

_Each year, the Districts of Panem will offer up tributes, two people between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice. The Hunger Games._

In other words, it was to remind them - the weaker districts - that they were fully. Unarguably. And _forever_ powerless to the Capitol’s rule. 

“I volunteer as tribute!” 

Baekhyun shoved out of his row, causing their perfect line of boys to be ruined, he ran through the dirt to the center of the reaping grounds, a single, wide walkway that was lined with peacekeepers.

And in the middle stood his little brother. Thin. Small. Crying.

Sehun's heart was entirely too kind. 

Baekhyun knew it was his fault. It was all his fault.

“Baekhyun!” Sehun cried, he stood alone, his best clothing were on, they were sizes too big, because they couldn’t afford to buy new ones when he grew, so the white top fell to mid thigh on him, and he didn’t reach out to him.

Because he knew it was pointless. He knew what was to happen.

Sehun clenched at his top and the amount of strength the twelve year old had to try and stop crying, to lift his chin, and to take a big breath - it reminded Baekhyun that his brother was much stronger than he gave him credit for.

Baekhyun would never be quite as strong, so he launched at Sehun.

“I volunteer,” Baekhyun said loud, firm, clutching Sehun's head to his chest. And no tears fell down his face, but Sehun’s rolling onto his shirt were plenty reminder of their situation.

“No!” His brother screamed and tried to hold onto him, “You can’t!” 

“I can!” Baekhyun held his cheeks and shook his head, “And I _will._ Go find mom.” 

A peacekeeper came forward to grab the child and Baekhyun’s heart turned into a pile of stone when his brother's scream rang out. 

Sehun would be okay. And that’s all Baekhyun cared about. His brother would be fine. 

“I’m _going,”_ Baekhyun hissed, face cold and icy as he pulled his arm out of a peacekeeper’s grasp to walk himself towards the stage. 

There was no escape, so he didn’t know why the Capitol even bothered with their white outfitted guards, but he knew what it was - it was a reminder, a scare tactic - because _nobody_ was allowed freedom within a district. 

“Oh look at you, look at you, aren’t you just a beauty?” 

Baekhyun never had much interest in District Twelve’s escort, Kim Jongdae. And he had even less interest in their one survivor of the Games. 

Kim Minseok was a drunkard. He’d always been as long as Baekhyun could remember. It was sad, because the man was barely ten years his senior, but Baekhyun didn’t have time to care about others.

He was too busy caring about the next meal he could find for Sehun.

“We need your name and age, dear.” 

A microphone was shoved in front of him, and Baekhyun stared blankly at the escort for a moment. 

He wondered what the Capitol’s appeal was with painting their skin odd colors and covering their body in so many strange clothes. There was no appeal in such things to Baekhyun. 

Jongdae looked more cat than person, and Baekhyun wondered what he looked like without all the enhancements.

The microphone was pushed at him once more with a clear of a throat from either the silent drunkard waiting to be free from his suit to go drink more, or the impatient, bouncing escort. 

Baekhyun leaned close to the microphone, lips parting with nervous eyes flickering around the crowd. “... Byun Baekhyun, eighteen.” 

“I’ll bet my hat that was your brother!” Jongdae laughed and pat his arm, bringing him closer and Baekhyun grimaced with distaste, but otherwise he was drowning it all out. 

Or he was just _drowning._

_“Let’s give him a round of applause!”_

Nobody clapped, they brought up three fingers and raised them. A sign of thanks, admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.

Now Baekhyun was positive he was drowning as he looked at the pity in people’s eyes, because everything sounded underwater. His ears were working, he heard the next tribute called, but couldn’t register a name.

And then it was all blurred, and he was tunnel visioned. 

Baekhyun just wanted to die, so Sehun could live.

***

“Two hundred miles per hour and you can barely feel a thing. I think it’s one of the wonderful things about this opportunity, that even though you’re here and even though it’s just for a little while, you get to enjoy all of this.” Jongdae ranted happily.

Baekhyun had been staring blankly since the moment he’d been forced onto this train.

He didn’t care about the wonderful foods that were given to them, or the fancy clothes.

He didn’t care if he was given a bedroom or a gold colored shower.

He cared about two things and two things only.

Sehun's face when he was pulled away from him, and the fact that he may never see his brother again. 

_“Want a cupcake?”_

Baekhyun had to jolt back when a hand was shoving a pink cupcake in front of him, blinking hard, hands slightly shaking. 

_Make that three things he cared about,_ he internally corrected himself when his eyes flickered to his district partner.

Park Chanyeol was never someone he spoke to. Not on a regular basis anyway. In fact, Baekhyun would go as far as to say they were basically strangers.

But they were strangers that _knew_ each other. And they were strangers that locked eyes often.

Baekhyun blamed himself for that. It took one stupid mistake for Chanyeol to nonstop watch him.

Sneaking through the fence to hunt was one thing, everyone secretly knew he did that, but sneaking into people's trash was another. It was embarrassing. And Baekhyun had been so desperate three years ago.

He’d sold all of Sehun's outgrown clothes, sold all he could of his own, and the animals in the forest were few and far in between that winter. 

Park Chanyeol was a boy that couldn’t relate to his feelings of hunger. He was from the higher part of District Twelve - his parents sold bread and baked goods - and while the district itself was poor, he was on the wealthier side of things. 

Baekhyun would forever be embarrassed of being caught digging in their trash, but Chanyeol had never uttered a word about it, and he never brought up the fact that he’d given Baekhyun a bag of burnt bread either.

It was a secret.

And if Baekhyun noticed that sometimes the inside of his desk at school had a piece of bread wrapped up inside, well he never said a thing.

They just spoke without words.

Because Chanyeol wasn’t a boy from the Seam, and Baekhyun never wanted to hurt his reputation by letting people know that Chanyeol was kind to him.

So he never spoke up, and he never told him how thankful he was.

It was ironic that the only way he could thank Chanyeol would be to kill him, or himself. 

_It would be one hell of a thank you._

“No sweet tooth?” Chanyeol laughed and it was incredibly deep. He sat down on the couch beside Baekhyun, placing the cupcake on the table and twisting to look out the window behind them, “This makes me nauseous.” 

Baekhyun couldn't help but to snicker, “Then why are you still looking?” 

Chanyeol's smile brightened up, and it made Baekhyun a tad uncomfortable, because it was aimed at him and only him. “It’s interesting, you know. Like… this is the only chance we have to see things like this, well, I mean… we might as well take advantage of it.” 

Baekhyun pressed his lips together at the reminder, but Chanyeol was right.

They would be dying anyway. 

“We might as well,” Baekhyun replied, leaning over to accept the cupcake. 

_“Before we turn into Capitol entertainment at least…”_

Baekhyun turned to look at Chanyeol’s profile, but he was already leaning towards the window. 

He frowned and looked back up to watch Minseok be scolded by Jongdae for his embarrassing behavior. 

***

There was something about being forced to strip down and cleaned up by someone else that Baekhyun hated. Just like he hated the odd hats and fancy jewels on the stylists.

In a way, he felt they always mimicked animals - like how the girl that was fiddling with his fingernails had long feathers in her bright blue hair - was she a bluejay? 

Or how the man that had given him a towel to cover himself with had stripes tattooed on his arms.

Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he was just being upset, but it was no wonder that animals would want to _seem_ like animals.

That’s all he thought the Capitol people were - heartless, feral, animals who laughed at their deaths.

The woman mumbled something and Baekhyun frowned as she pulled a cart closer to them and began to put gloves on.

“What is that?” Baekhyun demanded, swinging his legs off the side of the table, holding his towel around himself. 

“Oh don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, sweetie. It’s just vitamins.” She answered, her long blue nails getting in the way as she fiddled with the syringe.

Baekhyun had never seen something like that before. The needle on it was huge, the liquid inside was a milky color, his breath caught and he began to panic.

_Weren’t things not supposed to begin until they were in the arena?_

He began to flail and panic, jumping off the bed with arms raised, “Stop!”

“It’s just vitamins-“

Baekhyun didn’t know her, he didn’t trust her. He didn’t know _anyone_ in this tiny room.

The only option that seemed to calm him down was to book it out of the cracked door, shoving it open, panting and holding his towel tight. 

The Tribute Center was large, but as they were dragged in he noticed Chanyeol be led into a room directly across from him. 

That was the only person he knew, so Baekhyun ran inside. 

He didn’t care what they were up to with Chanyeol, but when he popped in with the door hitting the metal wall with a loud bang, Chanyeol's eyes were snapping up to look at Baekhyun with concern.

He had a blue robe on and his hair was cut out of his face - Baekhyun had never noticed before but Chanyeol’s ears were shaped _funny,_ but not in a way that made him want to laugh, it was just unique… and strange. 

“Woah, Baek! What are you-“

 _“They’re trying to stab me!”_ Baekhyun’s eyes were blown wide, standing nearly naked in the doorway, his legs were pink because they’d removed the hair from his body, saying it didn’t belong on him when Baekhyun had never heard of hair removal before.

First torturing him with something called _wax_ and now trying to stab him - Baekhyun though their few weeks before the Games would be relaxing. 

And then Chanyeol began to laugh, he threw his head back and Baekhyun took the chance to rush across the room and join him on the metal cot he was seated on.

Baekhyun realized then that Chanyeol was _huge._ They’d only been this close once, when Baekhyun was given the bag of burnt bread, but they’d only been fifteen then, and things changed.

His own legs seemed scrawny compared to Chanyeol's, and he had to lift his chin up to even find Chanyeol’s eyes. 

“You’ve-“ Chanyeol laughed hard, “Never had a shot before? Wasn’t your mom a medic?”

 _“A shot.”_ Baekhyun deadpanned and shook his head. “You have?”

“I mean,” Chanyeol cleared his throat and brought the edge of his robe over Baekhyun’s leg, eyes pointedly looking at himself rather than the smaller teenager. “Yeah, I’ve gotten them a few times…I guess they’re pretty expensive… so…” 

Baekhyun pursed his lips and lifted his thin shoulders towards his ears. “Do they hurt?” He worried.

“They sting for a second,” Chanyeol answered, turning his head to look at Baekhyun’s profile, running his eyes over the curve of his button nose and his now curly hair. “They made your hair curly.” 

“Oh. They told me that my long hair wasn’t nice to look at,” Baekhyun frowned and reached up to touch his hair, “They changed yours too.”

“I didn’t think your long hair was bad…” 

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun mumbled, “I just think that it’s better if it’s short anyway, you know, because of… hiding and _stuff.”_

Chanyeol's face pulled together and Baekhyun felt bad to keep bringing it up, but that’s the reason they were _here._ In a metal building with peacekeepers lining every corner. 

There was no escape now.

“I-I thought your other hair was nice too,” Baekhyun blurted, “I just… yeah. I mean.. this hair is nice too though, so it’s okay.” 

Chanyeol stared at him for a second, the corner of his lip quirking up, “I didn’t know you even looked my way-“

A loud clanking was heard outside the door and Baekhyun jumped, knowing that his stylists were probably looking for him. Without thinking he looked at Chanyeol for help.

“If you want…” A red blush painted Chanyeol's cheeks, “You can squeeze my hand, I promise it only hurts for a second.” 

Baekhyun clasped Chanyeol's palm and squeezed his eyes shut, oblivious to the worried look in Chanyeol's eye.

***

They had actual rooms, and District Twelve got the penthouse, but the honest truth was Baekhyun was finding it hard to enjoy much of anything.

But there was a stranger inside their room. One that had a soft quality to him, and yet still looked intimidating.

“Will we be discussing outfits now?” Minseok drawled across the dining table. It’d been silent for ten minutes since they’d all sat down. “Luhan, won’t you get to it? You’re scaring my tributes.” 

“Please. As if you have more interest in them than that bottle of gin in your coat pocket.” 

Baekhyun heard Chanyeol muffle a snicker beside and pressed his own lips together to hide a laugh.

Minseok was the most unhelpful man, but it was more Chanyeol that wanted to speak with him anyway - Baekhyun had no interest in pretending like he had a chance.

“Hello,” Luhan turned to them from across the table, eyes on his plate as he addressed the tributes.

Baekhyun noticed he didn’t have the same _arrogance_ that many other Capitol people had, yet he still had this sort of knowing about him that left him feeling blind to what was going on.

“My name is Luhan, I’m honored to be District Twelve's stylist this year. _Especially_ for this year - Baekhyun, that was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen, what you did for your brother.” 

Baekhyun sunk down into his spot, biting his lip and wrapping arms around his stomach. 

“I’m sorry this happened to the two of you.” Luhan’s eyes flickered up towards them, “And I’m happy to help anyway I can.”

“You’re supposed to just congratulate them,” Minseok drawled.

Luhan laughed and it was dry as he sat back to take a look at Minseok, “Remember last time I congratulated _you,_ Minseok?”

Baekhyun heard the chair beside his shift closer as Chanyeol reached for meat over his arm, he took a deep breath, because he seemed to be forgetting he wasn’t the only one in this situation.

Was it horrible of him to be happy he wasn’t alone in this? 

“The tribute parade is tomorrow,” Luhan continued, “We were supposed to discuss dressing after the stylists cleaned you off and readied you both, but I heard there was an incident.” 

Baekhyun blushed and pointedly looked down at his plate as he rubbed over the spot on his arm that had gotten jabbed.

“What’s the parade for?” 

“Does your district not have it broadcasted?”

“District Twelve only broadcasts the interviews and… the _show_ itself,” Chanyeol answered.

Baekhyun stiffened at his choice in words, how reckless could Chanyeol _be_ to refer to the Games as a mere show.

But he didn’t have a chance to respond because both Minseok and Luhan laughed, and Baekhyun was now busy watching Chanyeol put meat onto his own plate with a nudge of his arm. 

Baekhyun wished Jongdae was here to scold all of them, because he learned in less than a day that nobody wanted to deal with his loud mouth.

“I see, well it’s to show you off to the Capitol,” Luhan murmured, a twinkle of interest in his eye before he leaned over the table to point at Baekhyun, “This one is very pretty, I’m sure there will be sponsors for him.” 

“What about Chanyeol?” Baekhyun frowned, “Aren't you going to make us both look good?” 

“You both do make a beautiful looking pair,” Luhan mused, sitting back in his seat in looking between them, “I will say, it’s hard to make an impression for the coal mining district.” 

“Please don’t put ash on us,” Chanyeol complained with a huff.

Baekhyun chewed on his lip and gave a nod of agreement - he'd rather not be ash covered - it already was all over the air in their district, he didn’t need to breathe in any more.

“I don’t want to do that. I wanna do something that they’re gonna remember. Did they explain about trying to get sponsors?”

“The little one scowls too much and the tall one talks back,” Minseok commented with a deep sigh, “There was no point.” 

Luhan rolled his eyes and pointed his fork in Chanyeol's direction, “You look friendly enough, make some friends -“

“What about Baekhyun? He… no offense, Baekhyun, but you’re not very good at making friends…” 

Baekhyun pressed his lips together and glanced up at Chanyeol, eyes shining with nerves. “I know.” 

“We don’t need him to make friends, we need him to be emotional. What he did for his brother, that was _raw._ And if he continues to be this emotional, he doesn’t need to worry about that. Now. Tell me,” Luhan murmured, “Are you scared of fire?” 

***

“Districts One, Two, and Four - careers. Look to the left, but be discreet.” 

Baekhyun knew what careers were, they trained for these Games since they were young, the Capitol loved them and their districts.

Baekhyun shifted to grab the side of the chariot, barely able to move in his outfit. They were both dressed in thick black leather, head to toe. His own costume was a bit different to Chanyeol’s because it had a long robe attached to the back.

“District One, luxury goods. District Two, masonry. District Four, fishing. Keep out of sight of all of them.” Minseok whispered as he leaned on the side of the chariot that the two were standing in.

Baekhyun sniffled when powder was pressed more onto his nose and shoved the girls hand out of his face before turning to grab onto the golden rail of the chariot. 

“Why isn’t District Three a career?” Chanyeol wondered aloud.

“They are not as favored seeing as they rebelled multiple times,” Luhan answered, hushed and holding a button in his hand. “Push this button when you’re ready, and… stick close, would you?” He ordered, pushing Baekhyun into Chanyeol’s side, “Don't ruin my work with your nervous pacing,” He ordered.

Baekhyun pouted and heard Chanyeol laugh above him as the taller leaned over for the button. 

“But what if I get burned.” 

“You won’t.” 

_Well, that wasn’t much of an answer,_ Baekhyun internally whined, shifting his weight on his feet and feeling like his eyes were drying out from all the makeup on them. 

He’d never had makeup on his skin before, so when people came at him with brushes near his eyes he’d promptly freaked out until they agreed to let him sit in the same room as Chanyeol, Minseok, and Luhan. 

So what if Baekhyun was being a little complicated - the way he saw it was that he was going to die in less than three weeks, so he’d do whatever the hell he wanted.

“Anyway,” Minseok hit the side of the chariot and backed off, “Have fun, kids.”

Baekhyun squeaked and latched onto the metal handles as he was jolted when the chariot began to take off. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Chanyeol whispered, bringing a hand to grab Baekhyun’s wrist, “We’re not scared, remember? We’re not scared, Baekhyun.” 

Baekhyun would be a huge liar to say he wasn’t scared right now - he was being paraded around like an animal for Capitol citizens to see, to laugh at and place bets on.

These were people's _lives_ and yet they were seen as something so simple as bets.

“Hey,” Chanyeol grabbed his palm and leaned down a bit, “You don’t need to smile. You don’t need to pretend. You can be mad, and you can be upset, but remember that everything we’re doing is one step closer to you getting back to Sehun.” 

_Sehun._

It’d only been two days and Baekhyun felt like he hadn’t heard his brother's name in so long.

And you know what, Baekhyun _was_ upset. And he _was_ mad. Because his little brother was probably sobbing and scared and having to fend for himself. 

Baekhyun lifted his head. His eyes were lined with black so intensely that it made his expression darker, angrier. 

“Ready?”

Baekhyun nodded and held Chanyeol’s hand tight as fire surrounded them - it flew behind them - it gave the illusion that they were _making_ the fire, that in their wake fire was spreading.

He felt _powerful._ He felt brave. The cheers of citizens rang ten times louder then, and Baekhyun was too struck with overwhelming shock when his eyes hit the monitors that his face was on that he didn’t register when Chanyeol raised their intertwined hands up.

Baekhyun wasn’t just pretty. He wasn’t simply beautiful. In this moment he _felt_ like he was as radiant as the sun.

His eyes didn’t leave the monitors until their chariot was jolted to a stop and a red rose was being shoved under his nose.

 _“Take it,”_ Chanyeol whispered, his smile was wide and the glitter on his cheekbones looked somehow more interesting to Baekhyun than moments before, _“They love it, Baek.”_

Baekhyun took the rose with a loud breath, one he didn’t realize he’d been holding in - did Chanyeol always look this vibrant? Had he always had chocolate colored eyes? Baekhyun thought they’d been darker than that…

_“Tributes.”_

Baekhyun jumped and snapped his neck away from Chanyeol before he could think twice, chin raising to shoot up and look at the man in charge of all of this.

President Lee was a man of few words. But his eyes looked like a lion looking down at his prey. 

Baekhyun could see it, he could feel the predatory eyes leer over him and Chanyeol, and the thought - his own imaginary thought of the president being like a lion - made him shiver.

_“We welcome you. We salute the courage and your sacrifice. And we wish you Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor.”_

The audience cheered loudly for the presidents short words, and it made Baekhyun vaguely wonder if they even _knew_ what the president had done to the districts, if they even cared that people were starving and dying.

 _District Twelve where you could starve to death in safety,_ he mused as the chariots took them back to where they began.

And as Chanyeol grabbed his wrist when Baekhyun jostled with the chariot's rough riding, Baekhyun realized something else.

Chanyeol said _getting you back to Sehun._ He didn’t say anything about himself.

***

The one thing Baekhyun hated about the tribute housing was that it was very big, and it was very dark, and he was very lonely.

He spent his entire life in a one room house with holes in the ceiling where he could hear every little thing their neighbors were doing, so this was scary for him.

It also didn’t help that he didn’t have a warm body latched onto him like Sehun was known to do - his brother was a snuggly sleeper, and it was too different not to have him around.

Baekhyun slipped into the living area only to startle. “Hey..” 

Chanyeol's hair was in dismay and dark blue pajamas sat on his shoulder tightly, he was sitting cross legged beside the floor to ceiling window with a package of bread and a cut in front of him. “Oh, hey.” 

“Um,” Baekhyun chewed on his lip, “Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah… well, no, I mean…I’m just thinking.” Chanyeol laughed and trailed off a bit before pointing in front of him, “Wanna join?” 

Baekhyun _did,_ because being with someone was better than being alone.

He fixed his pajamas over his chest a bit before taking a seat on the carpet, his bare foot accidentally brushing Chanyeol’s calf, but the other didn’t move at all. He just smiled and picked his cup up and leaned over to hold it towards Baekhyun. 

“They call it hot chocolate,” Chanyeol smiled,

“Try it, it’s good.” 

Baekhyun accepted the cup and as soon as the drink hit his taste buds he began to gulp it all down, it was sweet and yet not incredibly so, and it was warm and homey.

The cup was empty by the time Baekhyun brought it from his lips, and his shoulders slumped guiltily as he gave the now empty cup back.

Chanyeol chuckled and shrugged it off, “There’s a machine in the dining room for it, we can always make more later.” He mused, leaning against the window.

Baekhyun nodded and wrung his hands together in his lap as he turned his head to see what Chanyeol was so amazed by.

The Capitol was lively, it was colorful and lit up. They weren’t allowed outside of the Tribute Center - tributes weren’t allowed to interact with the citizens because it couldn’t be seen as bribery - but it wasn’t like Baekhyun was interested in going far.

Maybe just far enough to hide away.

“It’s beautiful, in a way,” Chanyeol commented, eyes locked on the lights outside. “In a sick, and I guess disturbing way. They have all these things, and what do we have…. I don’t know… it’s just not right.” 

“Why does it matter what is right or wrong,” Baekhyun laughed humorlessly, “They kill twelve year olds annually, I hardly think they would recognize _right_ if it looked them in the eye.” 

Chanyeol began to laugh and Baekhyun could manage a small smile of accomplishment as he reached over to take Chanyeol’s bread - he didn’t seem to be eating it anyway, and in this scenario there was more than that came from.

Baekhyun was never used to hearing the words _would you like seconds,_ but he’d heard it at every meal now.

“Why did you volunteer for Sehun?”

Baekhyun’s brows pulled together, the bread that was sitting in his mouth suddenly didn’t taste all that good as Chanyeol turned his head to look at him.

“He’s my brother,” Baekhyun whispered, dropping his eyes down to play with the bread in his fingers, “You would do the same if you had a brother, wouldn’t you? It’s family after all.” 

“No.” Chanyeol said simply, shaking his head and bringing his knees closer to himself, “No. I wouldn’t.” 

Baekhyun frowned. “Why not?” 

Baekhyun hadn’t noticed until then that Chanyeol wasn’t too different from himself. He was thin, scrawny, he was larger built and more muscular, but not nearly as big as the careers. 

He could picture Chanyeol much bigger, muscular, cheeks rounder, but it was weird because he couldn’t even look in the mirror and picture his own cheeks round and the bags under his eyes cleared up.

Was it because the future for himself he couldn’t see? Or simply because he didn’t _want_ to see it.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol had a half smile on his face, one that was vaguely sad as he licked his lips, “Do you remember that night I found you outside?” 

Baekhyun short circuited, he wanted to deny it, because a deep feeling of embarrassment settled in his bones. But Chanyeol knew it would be a lie.

He nodded.

“My mom isn’t a nice lady,” Chanyeol whispered, “And my dad isn’t a nice man - that’s how you see us, right? Anyone who has food, their lives must be so good… huh? I can see it on your face.” 

Baekhyun stayed silent.

“But it’s just _not true,”_ Chanyeol whispered, “Look at me - I’m never going to turn eighteen. I’m never going to know what it’s like to have a family care about me. I’m worth _nothing._ I know it. My parents know it… my name was in there a dozen times, I knew this was coming for me, Baek… but.. but not for _you.”_ His brows pulled together and Baekhyun felt a shadow cast over his face as Chanyeol leaned down, “Why are you here, Baekhyun? You aren’t supposed to be here.” 

Baekhyun didn’t know. He swallowed and eyed around Chanyeol's face. His expression wasn’t upset despite saying such upsetting things.

It was concerned - concerned for Baekhyun.

“F-For _Sehun.”_ He answered, clearing his throat, “I… I’m sorry, I have to win for Sehun, Chanyeol. I have to…” _I have to kill you._ “He wouldn’t have made it.” 

“I know,” Chanyeol sighed and Baekhyun felt his warm breath on his forehead because they were so close. “I’m just so mad… I just didn’t want it to be _you.”_

Before Baekhyun could ask what he was talking about Chanyeol was standing up and walking towards the hallway. 

“Get some rest, we start training tomorrow.” 

“Okay…” Baekhyun whispered.

***

_“In two weeks, twenty three of you will be dead, maybe one of you will be alive. Who that is depends on how well you pay attention over the next three days. Particularly to what I’m about to say._

_First, no fighting with the other tributes, you’ll have plenty of time for that at the arena. There are four compulsory exercises, the rest will be individual training. My advice is don’t ignore the survival skills._

_Everybody wants to grab a sword, but most of you will die from natural causes, ten percent from infection, twenty percent from dehydration. Exposure can kill as easily as a knife.”_

Baekhyun couldn't keep his eyes from looking at the bows as the tributes began to go to different circuits to practice. He’d never seen such bows before - they were metal and heavy.

Minseok told him not to show off the second he got into training, that it was better to pretend to know nothing than to make people believe he knew everything. 

Baekhyun didn’t know everything though. He only knew how to hold a bow.

He didn’t realize he was staring blankly until he heard a laugh from near him and jumped from where he was standing to rush around and find Chanyeol.

Baekhyun didn’t want to speak with the careers, he didn’t want to tell them it was rude to laugh at him, and he didn’t even want to spare them any time of day. 

He didn’t want to be a target for them so easily.

He found Chanyeol at a table of paints, his arm beginning to be painted green and Baekhyun was interested in the art. 

“What’s this?” 

Chanyeol jumped and sighed with relief when he realized it was Baekhyun - his reaction made the elder laugh. “What are you doing?” Baekhyun asked and reached for a pile of what seemed like crushed leaves. 

“Camouflage,” Chanyeol gave a nervous, lopsided grin, “I used to paint.” 

“Really?” Baekhyun asked, “It was too expensive to get paints.” 

Chanyeol sent him a sad look, as if he’d overstepped, and Baekhyun brushed it off with a shrug, “Can you teach me?” 

A grin spread across Chanyeol’s face as he nodded and Baekhyun scooted closer to watch him when he heard the sound of metal bending and his head shot up to look above him.

A little boy was crawling around on the rafters, the training suit he was given was too loose on him and his hair was a mess of childlike bed head.

Baekhyun’s mouth turned into a gawking expression.

“That’s Zitao,” Chanyeol murmured, “He’s from District Eleven.”

“Nobody volunteered for him… I don’t want him here, in the Games. Not because of competition, but because he’s just so young. He shouldn’t be exposed to things like this.” 

Chanyeol turned to look at him, “I guess he didn’t have someone like you in his life, Baekhyun.” 

Baekhyun’s face dulled.

***

Baekhyun was more interested in watching others than training himself. 

From watching alone he learned that a career from District Two - Mingyu - was able to send a spear through a dummy's heart from 15 yards.

He’d seen the tributes of District Three and Nine start a fire and then back off in fear when it burst from their flint still being close to it.

The District Eight female had gotten “killed” when using a machine that had you choose poisonous foods out from nonpoisonous ones. The instructor told her ingesting the leaf she’d chosen would have left her paralyzed for an hour before taking over her heart.

Weaknesses were difficult to pick out, but Baekhyun wasn’t much for causing trouble in order to watch reactions like some other tributes were doing. 

In particular, he noticed some districts were better at certain things than others.

The technology district - District Three - weren’t well adapted to ropes or fire stations. If they didn’t learn quickly then Baekhyun was sure bugs would get them before any people. 

District Six were in charge of transportation, so it wasn’t a surprise to him when he saw one of the tributes slip off an obstacle course and crack a lip. They weren’t used to having to physically labor.

The careers were harder to watch though, because they were good at so much. They’d been trained for this after all - they volunteered to be here - and not in the same way Baekhyun had.

They _wanted_ the fight. They wanted to win.

Baekhyun was sure if they ended up dying it would be from their own illusion of an easy victory.

These were people's _lives_ after all, not something to be easily taken. He knew if it were him that he wasn’t going out easily.

A loud crashing noise caught him off guard and he jumped up from the floor where he’d been tying snares repeatedly.

Chanyeol was kneeling onto the floor and holding his chin beside the camouflage station - something he’d excelled at the past two days.

“Still painting, Twelve? Even the kids are testing out weapons!” 

Baekhyun’s eyes followed the large careers back as he walked away cackling from his District Partner before standing up to rush over. 

“Chan-“

Chanyeol looked ashamed as he stood up, a small cut on his chin and Baekhyun was upset he’d missed what exactly occured, but based on the instructors scolding loudly about fighting in the Training Center, he could only assume Chanyeol had been pushed into the metal table of paints.

“Don't. Don't even.” Chanyeol murmured, bringing a hand up to dab at his bleeding chin. “He’s right.” 

“What?” Baekhyun gawked and scowled as he shoved Chanyeol’s arm, “What are you going on about?” 

“He’s _right, Baekhyun.”_ Chanyeol laughed humorlessly and walked over to a table against the wall, “I’m not good at anything like that-“

“Stop that!” Baekhyun yelled, hitting a fist on the table, “I’m not going to have you be like this so soon-“

“Why?” Chanyeol rolled his eyes, “Come on, even Minseok said it. At least _you_ can shoot, I can’t even throw a knife.” 

Baekhyun’s eyes flickered around in thought as he reached over the table to grab Chanyeol’s chin, to look at the wound.

It really was just a small scratch, but it made him angry to no end.

“They’re going to keep bullying you.” Baekhyun said firmly, wrapping a hand around Chanyeol's wrist, “Unless we do something.” 

“Baek-“

“Go throw those metal things.” 

“What?” Chanyeol's brows furrowed as he turned to look around the Training Center, “But were not-“

“I don’t care, throw it,” Baekhyun ordered, “They're looking at you like you’re a meal. Throw it. I know you can, I’ve seen you throw bags of flour twice my size.” 

“You’ve watched me?” 

Baekhyun sat unmoving, not responding, just staring at Chanyeol waiting for him to do something. So the larger did.

He chewed the inside of his cheek and walked across the Training Center to a rack of metal weights below the balcony of Gamemakers observing their training.

The weights were easily more than himself, Baekhyun knew that, but Chanyeol must be used to heavy lifting, because he took one and threw it at a dummy across the center with a loud grunt. 

It was incredibly loud, the metal hitting the plastic dummy bounced off the walls and left a ringing in Baekhyun’s ears.

And despite that, he laughed.

And when Chanyeol turned to look at him with his chest heaving and eyes wide, Baekhyun laughed harder.

***

Inside the Gamemakers judging room, most of the Gamemakers were paying no attention. The stations were set up the same exact way as in the Training Center, only the balcony above, where Gamemakers should be watching from, was full of chattering and laughter.

Baekhyun didn’t sit still in a room of people waiting to kill each other just to be _ignored._

It was bad enough that Chanyeol’s leg chattering had given away how nervous the younger was, and that made Baekhyun even more uncomfortable because he would rather pretend they both were ready for this.

The truth was they _weren’t._

This was a moment that would say whether or not they were worth saving in the arena - it was well known that anyone who scored less than a seven was seen as unworthy of sponsorships.

Baekhyun didn’t want the highest score - but he didn’t want the lowest either - he just wanted a score that gave him enough support to have a sponsor when necessary.

A seven. He wasn’t asking for too much. He just wanted a seven, right on the edge of being too weak and being average. 

He didn’t want to be seen as a threat and taken down instantly. And he also didn’t want to be seen as an easy kill.

Baekhyun walked to the archery station, he had yet to even pick up one of these metal bows. They were so heavy that he groaned aloud as he tested the string a few times for flexibility.

It was stiff from underuse, he knew it would take him a moment to get used to them, so when he walked back to a respectable few yards away from the wall of plastic dummies, he missed his first shot.

That was okay, he'd expected as much and took a breath as he reached for a new arrow from the quiver on his back. 

His hands were steady, and the chattering above him on the balcony didn’t stop him from shooting once more. 

A dummy was hit in the chest with a resonating _thump_ from the force of the arrow pressing it against the wall. 

Baekhyun laughed and smiled accomplished as he looked up at the balcony only to see nobody looking at him.

Baekhyun curled his lip in anger. This was life or death for him, he needed a score. This determined whether or not he should even attempt to defend himself in the Games - if he wasn’t killed in the first few minutes.

Anger consumed him. 

They had _one_ job. And it was to watch and judge the tributes. It wasn’t like they had to sit in a waiting room for the past eight hours like he had just done. 

He got up from his stance, grabbed an arrow, and _shot_ it straight through an apple on the table, pinning it to the wall.

Every Gamemaker, staff, and judge became quiet at his defiance. The Head Gamemaker was closest to the apple, his hand had been reaching out for it, and he was frozen in shock. 

Baekhyun scowled. 

Attention was all on him. Baekhyun threw his bow, quiver, arm guard, and arrows to the side before bowing. “Thank you for your consideration.” He hoped they could see in his eyes how hateful he was.

And he hoped he hid the fear in his eyes well.

***

“Baek?” 

Baekhyun had food shoved in his mouth and eyes wide as he glanced up at Chanyeol who stood in his doorway. 

He swallowed the bite full of sandwich in his mouth before smiling sheepishly and pushing his tray away from himself. “Hungry?”

Chanyeol laughed and came into his room, shutting the door behind him and crossing his arms, “You're hiding away to _eat?”_

“Why do you say it like that?” Baekhyun pouted and reached for a cookie off his plate, shoving it into his mouth. “Rude.” 

“Fine,” Chanyeol snorted and walked across the room to take a seat on the end of his bed, immediately becoming interested in the wall of flickering graphics of forests Baekhyun had playing on a projector.

“Capitol things are strange.”

Baekhyun eyed him while wiping crumbs off of his own chin. 

“Like..” Chanyeol frowned and leaned onto his elbows,

“They have all _this_ and we have what? Coal?”

“And air pollution.” 

They both laughed and Baekhyun smiled to himself as he moved the tray off of his bed and onto his side table, “Aren't you going to ask me how it went?”

“Nah.” Chanyeol murmured before laying back and throwing an arm across his eyes, “I’m tired of talking about all this _Game_ stuff.” 

“Isn’t that why we're here?” 

“Yeah, but I just kind of wish they just threw us in already.” Chanyeol snickered, “It’s not like you just gain skills with only days of practicing. We aren’t careers who have everything taught to us.” 

Baekhyun agreed, but he didn’t verbalize that and instead climbed off his bed to the mirror in the corner of the room, snagging a jar from the top of his dresser. 

“What's that?”

“I don’t know,” Baekhyun shrugged, “Luhan gave it to me, something about my skin being bad from the air or something.” 

“Oh,” Chanyeol snorted, “Capitol people are so _weird.”_

Baekhyun giggled and agreed with a nod before he was placing cream onto his cheeks, eyeing Chanyeol in the reflection, “Do you want to try?” 

Chanyeol looked grossed out for a second which made Baekhyun laugh before the younger murmured a _sure._

“It’s slimy,” Baekhyun stated as he grabbed the jar and smirked as he jumped onto the bed, “Let me share my pain with you, it’s so gross _.”_ He teased before swiping a line of it across Chanyeol’s cheek, giggling.

“Ugh, it’s _cold!”_

“Hey! You said I could do it!” Baekhyun shot back and grabbed Chanyeol’s sleeve before the other could rush off, laughing loud and forcing him to stay still.

It fell silent for a bit as Baekhyun slathered face cream onto Chanyeol while the younger sulked and stared at him.

Until Chanyeol cleared his throat, “I just threw some heavy things.” 

Baekhyun’s soft giggling simmered into nothing, but he pretended not to be disappointed at the change in subjects, “Oh yeah? What do you think you’ll get?”

“A four.” 

“Four?” Baekhyun scrunched his nose up with distaste, “I think an eight, strength like that is a big factor-“

 _“Baek.”_ Chanyeol whispered and reached up to grab Baekhyun's arm, “Can we stop pretending, just for a second, that I’m going to win. I have no chance, and I don’t really mind…” 

Baekhyun’s jaw clenched as he wiped his hands onto his pajama pants, only now realizing how close they were sitting, “I can’t just…” 

“If this is about you feeling like you owe me… then just _don’t._ Just don’t. Okay? It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” Baekhyun’s face contorted into confusion as he clicked his tongue and looked into brown eyes, “I mean… why _did_ you though… giving me food like that..”

Chanyeol didn't reply for a second, he just stared at Baekhyun and the light sheen to his skin from the moisturizer before he shrugged and muttered under his breath. “I don’t know…” 

“But you _do_ know.” Baekhyun argued, hands clenching on his thighs, “You know, and I know too, and -“

“You told me you noticed me carrying heavy things - how did you know that?” Chanyeol cut him off with a searching and pleading look on his face. 

Baekhyun licked his lips and opened and closed his mouth to search for an answer a couple of times. “I… I just saw you… I just… I sometimes thought of maybe… _thanking you,_ but I was so scared-“

“Scared of what?”

“I don’t know!” Baekhyun burst wildly, jumping off the bed with a frustrated look on his face, “I don’t know! If you say you don’t know and I’m supposed to accept that as an answer, then I can say I don’t know either, okay? What do you want to hear from me? You keep looking at me… like there’s something I should know, but I _don’t_ know it, Chanyeol. I don’t!”

“Come on, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said loudly, but not yelling, as he stood up to grab Baekhyun’s sleeve, “You _do_ know, I get it. Sehun is first. He’s always first to you, you’re too busy to think about yourself. It’s okay - but… but it’s really frustrating, you know? Like… I’ve been trying since we were in grade school and you had these round cheeks, you were _happy…_ and a lot has changed, everyone knows so much has changed for your family. The mine incident. Your mother. Your brother. But… when is it _your turn_ to feel something, Baekhyun?” 

Baekhyun’s mind was running too fast and yet too slow and even though Chanyeol was clearly trying to spell something out for him he didn’t understand what he was _supposed_ to.

He just made his head hurt, and his eyes were watering and he was _scared._

“Baek,” Chanyeol whispered and tugged him closer, his nose brushing the elders hair, “We could die so soon, and yet… that’s _it?_ Is it?”

Baekhyun’s chin was bumped gently and when he looked up he found Chanyeol was far too close to him, and their noses touched.

“That's how it has to be.” Baekhyun whispered with shaking eyes. “It has to be…” 

Chanyeol breathed warmly against his face as he laid his forehead utop Baekhyun’s, but before he could reply there was a loud crashing from the living area and a handful of screams.

_“Twelves! Twelve?”_

Footsteps raced down the hall and Baekhyun yanked himself away from Chanyeol the second the door was flung open and three heads peered in. 

“Tell me how you guys got twelves!” Minseok demanded as he came in, looking between them both. “Who did you kill?”

“Must have been Baek,” Chanyeol commented offhandedly, an irritation to his voice as he sat back onto Baekhyun's bed and reached for his tray of food. “I just threw stuff.” 

“Baekhyun, the boy on fire.” Luhan grinned, “Oh, wait until you see your interview clothes.” 

***

_“I can’t breathe!”_ Baekhyun shrieked and sucked in his belly as Luhan tied his top around him. 

The outfit was far more skin than he would normally share, the top was solid black and sparkly with hints of red that trailed down the ribbons in the back. 

“Stop whining, sweetheart.” 

“I can’t do this,” Baekhyun breathed loudly as he looked at the monitor over Luhan’s head. District Ten was up now, and soon it would be him.

“Yes you _can.”_ Luhan argued, “You even won over the Gamemakers. As for the citizens of the Capitol, they just can’t stop talking about you. No one can help but admire your spirit. Suppose that when you’re answering the questions, imagine you’re addressing your closest friend back home.” 

“I had no friends.” 

“I’m your friend.” 

Baekhyun’s lip quirked up as he shook his head, “You hardly know me.” 

“Well,” Luhan mused up one of his curls, smiling at him, “What I do _know_ I’ve loved. So just be yourself, okay?” 

“I hardly like myself on a good day,” Baekhyun whispered breathily.

Luhan laughed and pulled him out of his changing room and into the tribute waiting room, a hand wrapped around his arm.

Baekhyun wanted to cover himself up when he had eyes for his revealing upper half, his top wrapped around his chest and waist, but he showed more shoulders than others. Everyone else looked so _boring._

He was also biased because he quite liked his stylist.

“You look beautiful.” 

Baekhyun jumped and grabbed his chest as he turned around to look at Chanyeol, breathing with relief and looking him over.

Chanyeol looked very nice too, his suit matched Baekhyun’s outfit with the same black and red colors, only his hair was slicked back and out of his face to reveal his dimpled grin.

“You… yeah, you _too,”_ Baekhyun flustered, laughing under his breath and making a move towards him when Luhan snatched him back.

“Not so fast, lover boy, you're up.” 

Baekhyun didn’t register anything Luhan said, because he was shaking as he was pulled towards the stage, he wasn’t processing anything that was being said, just fishing for words as a peacekeeper motioned for him to walk out.

“From District Twelve. District Twelve, you know him as the boy on fire!”

The audience was cheering, but Baekhyun wasn't digesting anything that was happening, he walked mindlessly, like a robot out onto the stage towards the interviewing couch.

He'd seen this stage since he was twelve, old enough for his name to be put into the bowl to be reaped, but never once had he expected to be on it himself.

“That was quite an entrance that you made at the tribute parade the other day. Do you want to tell us about it?”

Baekhyun blinked out at the flashing lights of the audience as he sat down before turning with a breathy sigh of nerves to Shin Youngmin, an interviewer that was now blue haired compared to last Game interviews.

“Well, I was just hoping that I wouldn’t burn to death.” He whispered, eyes wide.

The laughter didn't feel quite as shocking this time, in fact Baekhyun’s shoulders relaxed.

“When you came out on that chariot, I have to say, my heart stopped.” Youngmin laughed and turned to the audience, “Did any of you experience this as well? My heart stopped.”

Baekhyun’s hand tapped on his knee anxiously, “So did mine.”

“I have to ask,” Youngmin continued, “We’re the flames real?” 

“Oh,” Baekhyun’s eyes flickered around the audience, “Yes. In fact, I’m wearing them today.” 

“By all means, we’d never resist a show!” Youngmin grinned and motioned out towards the stage.

The words had a double meaning, and for a moment Baekhyun hesitated. Why should he play into this interview show? Youngmin was a man that got people hyped up to _die._

But in the back of his mind, he knew it was more about trying to make the tributes look good. And Baekhyun could use all the help he could get.

He stood up with a nervous grin, pushing his curls from his face and walking towards the edge of the stage.

Luhan was a brilliant designer, so Baekhyun wasn’t shocked at what he could do, but as he pressed a button on the inside of his bracelet even he was gawking at the flickering flames lining the red trim of his outfit.

It was beautiful. 

Baekhyun felt beautiful.

“Oh my goodness! Round of applause! Round of applause!” Youngmin hopped from his seat and came across the room to grab Baekhyun’s hand as the flames flickered out, “Now that, that's amazing. Astonishing.” 

Baekhyun could only laugh and shoot his eyes to find Luhan in the audience as he was led back to the couch. 

“Baekhyun, that was something. That _was_ something. Thank you for that. I have one more question for you. It’s about your brother. We were all very moved, I think, when you volunteered for him at the reaping. Did he come and say goodbye to you?”

Baekhyun’s smile dulled, “No, he didn’t.” 

The audience awed and Youngmin leaned over to pat his hand, “He didn’t. If you had a chance, what would you say to him now?” 

“I…” Baekhyun licked his lips, “I would say that I would try to win, I would try to win for him.” 

“I’m sure he heard you well tonight. And I’m sure you will try.” Youngmin murmured, tugging his hand for him to stand up, “Ladies and gentlemen, from District Twelve, Byun Baekhyun, the boy on fire!” 

Everything felt slower then. Baekhyun was ushered back into the waiting room, and as soon as he was in, Chanyeol was walking out with only a pitying glance towards him.

“You did good, kid,” Minseok muttered and leaned against the wall beside Baekhyun, watching Chanyeol’s broad back approach the couch. “Even with a shitty mentor.” 

Chanyeol was much more calm than him, he shook hands with Youngmin, he smiled and charmed the audience with that handsome smile of his.

“You're not shitty,” Baekhyun whispered, crossing his arms, “But I would prefer if you didn’t try to talk to me smelling like whisky.” 

Minseok snickered, shoving his arm, “Now I see why you have no friends.” 

Baekhyun laughed and turned his full attention to Chanyeol’s interview while Minseok walked away, 

“So, Chanyeol, tell me. Is there a special person back home?”

“No. Not really.”

“No! I don’t believe it for a second. Look at that face! A handsome man like you. Chanyeol, tell me.” Youngmin cried, ramping the crowd up more with a frown and the audience _awed_ sadly.

Chanyeol bounced his leg up and down and laughed sheepishly. “Well,” He murmured, “There uh…there is this one boy that I’ve had a crush on forever.” He admitted, pressing his lips together. “But I don’t think he actually recognized me until the reaping.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you what. You go out there, and you win this thing, and when you get home, he’ll have to go out with you. Right folks?”

The audience cheered and screamed their raging approval of the statement, while Chanyeol shuffled in his seat and rubbed the back of his neck with a laugh. “Thanks. But I uh…I don’t think winning’s gonna help me at all.”

“And why not?”

Baekhyun frowned as his stomach churned, eyes flickering from his backstage view of Chanyeol’s back to the television overhead.

Chanyeol paused for a long moment, and when he answered it was followed by a heavy and deep sigh, _“Because he came here with me.”_

Baekhyun felt his knees go weak as the rest of the interview continued on behind him, reaching over to grab the side of the couch as he grabbed his stomach.

Was it guilt he felt? Pain? 

Baekhyun didn’t know, because he'd never felt an emotion so debilitating before.

_“Well, that’s bad luck.”_

_“Yeah, it is.”_

_“And I wish you all the best of luck.”_

_“Thank you.”_

Baekhyun’s eyes were filled with tears as he looked up at Minseok, launching at him and tugging him into the elevator. 

“I can sell this, Baekhyun.” Minseok assured, oblivious to the reason he was crying. “Star crossed lovers would get so many sponsors.” 

“Don't let him near me,” Baekhyun shook his head and cried as he clutched onto the elders clothes, “Don't let him near me. I'll have to kill him. I’ll _have_ to kill him!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you want me to do the whole series?
> 
> Title is from Alec Benjamin’s song, if we have each other
> 
> Edit: I’m on a short break!! But I swear I have the next part nearly ready to post! (The time between updates may be a bit bc I’m trying to make them about 10K each.... let’s see if my patience let’s me stick to that lol)


	2. The Hunger Games: Part Two

Baekhyun didn’t speak to Chanyeol the entire last few days before the Games. He ate in his room, he snuck out only to meet with Luhan for fittings, and he completely bypassed Jongdae's scoldings when they started.

But, not everything was avoidable.

He found out Chanyeol was a person of habit, and it seemed drinking hot chocolate on the floor at late hours was his hobby.

“Can't sleep?” Baekhyun whispered as he came into the living room, immediately walking passed Chanyeol by the window to the drink machine in the dining room.

Perhaps he was a bit addicted to the drink too, but Chanyeol was to blame.

“Of course not.” 

Baekhyun licked his lips, “You should. Tomorrow’s the day.” 

Chanyeol didn’t answer, and all Baekhyun got in response was the audible thump of his head pressing against the glass window.

 _“I’m sorry for ignoring you,”_ Baekhyun whispered, walking into the living room to take a seat on the end of the couch, looking down onto Chanyeol’s form. 

“Luhan told me to be myself, so I did. I told the truth.” 

“He told me to be the same and I made myself look like a nervous wreck,” Baekhyun murmured, clutching his cup in both hands as he leaned over the arm of the couch, swallowing. “I guess we both could have hid some things.” 

“I didn’t want to,” Chanyeol argued as he turned around to face him, knees pulled close to himself, “I don’t want to be different just because of this. I just hope this doesn’t change me. That _they_ don’t change me.” 

“How would they change you?”

“I don’t know. Turn me into something I’m not. I just don’t wanna be another piece in their game, you know?”

“You mean you won’t kill anyone?”

“No. I’m sure I would, just like anybody else when the time came. But, you know, I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don’t own _me._ You know, if I’m gonna die, I wanna still be me. Does that make any sense?”

Baekhyun didn’t answer, because he hated to think about it, they still had one more night to live, there was no reason they had to talk about dying when they had such a limited time _living._

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said softly, dropping his hands into his lap with a downcast expression, “If things weren’t like this, do you think… that maybe you’d like me too?”

“Things _are_ like this, Chanyeol.” 

“But if they _weren’t,”_ Chanyeol argued, warm eyes flicking to Baekhyun, “I’m asking if they weren’t like this, Baekhyun. Pretend we aren’t going to die tomorrow. Pretend.” 

Baekhyun had plenty of time to ask himself that when the past three days he had been hiding in his room, but seeing Chanyeol, hearing the question from him… 

He snagged his drink and stood up, only to hear a heavy sigh of disappointment from Chanyeol.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun muttered, “Even though things _are_ like this, I never said I didn’t like you. I have no idea where you got that idea from.” 

Then he walked back to his room.

***

“They’ll put all kinds of stuff right in front, right in the mouth of the Cornucopia. They’ll even be a bow there, don’t go for it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a bloodbath, they’re trying to pull you in, that’s not your game. You turn, run, find high ground, look for water. Water’s your new best friend. Now, don’t step off that pedestal early or they’ll blow you sky high.” Minseok instructed, a hand on Baekhyun’s lower back leading him out of an aircraft and into an all black room.

“I won’t.” 

Baekhyun swallowed as Minseok gave a final pat onto his back and abandoned him with only Luhan standing in the room. 

Luhan’s expression was solemn, and he simply offered a hand towards him as Baekhyun looked at the clear tube that would take him into the arena.

“How was Chanyeol?” Baekhyun whispered.

“Funny.” Luhan snickered, “He asked the same thing about you. He's doing as well as he can be, I told him the same about you.” 

Baekhyun nodded before gulping as Luhan took out a pin from his pocket, a familiar and shining pin. He could have cried just at the sight of it, but he had to numb himself. “Where did you get that?”

“Every tribute is allowed one token from their district,” Luhan murmured, “District Two’s was taken away after they found poison inside of the ring. But _yours_ was perfectly approved,” He stated, pinning the mockingjay to the inside of his coat.

 _“Thirty seconds,”_ An automated voice filled the dark room.

Baekhyun felt panic take over as Luhan straightened out his windbreaker and looked over his skin tight outfit. 

“I'm not allowed to make bets,” Luhan whispered as he pulled Baekhyun over towards the tube, “But if I could, they would be on you.” 

And then Baekhyun was looking at him from the inside of a clear tube, mouth agape, fear taking over his face as he was lifted up on the elevator.

All twenty four tributes were on separate platforms.

Baekhyun blinked a few times through the blinding light of the artificial sun overhead, eyes focusing. In the middle of the large Cornucopia held survival kits, weapons, and more.

Minseok’s words flashed into his mind, but were gone as quick as they came. 

He knew he needed to grab something - anything to keep him going. He needed a bag, rope, and a bottle for water. 

It was hard to focus on anything really. His mind was racing with nerves, and he wanted to puke.

_“Ladies and gentlemen. Let the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games… begin!”_

A loud sound buzzing indicated the start of the Games. The tributes launched out. Baekhyun was a late start by a few seconds, trying to get over his shock.

By the time he was getting the nerve to jump off his platform there was already a bloodbath, many people fighting to the death on the spot, right in the Cornucopia.

Baekhyun sprinted towards a bright orange backpack with unknown contents, but just as his fingers grabbed the bag and he threw it over his arm he got stopped in his tracks by a knife shaving past his ear.

He flinched and used the bag as a shield, a knife getting stuck onto the bag when he spun around and looked wide eyed at the District Two female.

She stared at him with a sinister snarl before Baekhyun realized she had no more knives in hand and jumped up to start towards the forest again, ears ringing with screams.

The forest was dense, but a forest wasn’t unfamiliar territory for him, Baekhyun had practically spent his entire life in a forest, and he knew where the birds were singing would be water and where bugs hoarded would be edible plants.

He ran for hours. He didn’t know how far, but he was tired, sweat was rolling down his face and into his eyes, his hair was matted down onto his forehead.

Baekhyun slowed his jog into a walk. 

The boy jumped when thirteen cannons went off, the sound of thirteen children _dead._

The first day, and already so many had died. Only eleven of them were left, but that was still too many.

He slumped down next to a tree, opening his backpack with a soft pant and checking its contents.

A thin sleeping bag with plastic-like material, a pack of crackers, a pack of beef jerky, a bottle of iodine, a box of wooden matches, a small coil of wire, night glasses that look like sunglasses, and a bottle for liquids. He checked the bottle. Empty. _“Fuck.”_

Baekhyun sighed and closed up the bag with a smack of his head against the tree behind himself, heavily panting and eyes roaming around as he caught his breath.

It would be for the best not to stay on the ground, chances were that the careers weren’t done for today, although the Cornucopia was completely controlled by them now, so Baekhyun didn’t know what else it was that they could possibly want to accomplish in one night.

Once he regained his strength, he climbed up the tree beside him, he took his belt and wrapped it around the tree branch and his waist to tie himself down.

Tomorrow would be a new, yet completely horrible, day.

***

Baekhyun awoke to the crackle of fire and the smell of smoke near where he'd been sleeping in for the past two days. He looked underneath the tree he was tied to.

On day two, he thought he’d heard screaming nearby, and that only scared him into spending another day stuck on the tree.

But it seemed the citizens were bored of his hiding out, because at the base of the tree a fire was starting all around him, particularly underneath him. 

“Fuck, fuck.” He fumbled trying to unbuckle the belt around his waist and retrieve the backpack and sleeping bag.

Losing his balance, he fell to the ground with a grunt of pain, and recovered with a jump up to began running through the smoke.

He ran through the smoke, coughing, and gagging. Even his saliva was dry and the inside of his mouth tasted raw.

While running, Baekhyun was so busy hacking that he didn’t notice a tree had fallen over - he fell face first over a tree branch and puked from the horrible smell in the air, lungs protesting. “Get up.” He cried to himself in a gravelly voice, his arms and legs shaking as he forced himself up.

Baekhyun reached a point where he fumbled out of the smoke and fire, but not out of the line of danger. 

That’s when a fireball was hurled at him, he must have been too close to the boundary of the arena because not just one came. 

Many began to fly out at him, forcing him to change course and stumble down the curved floor of the forest, kicking up dirt behind him.

He saw another fly past him in his peripheral vision before there was a burning sensation on his right calf. Baekhyun screamed aloud, unable to hold it in, teeth barred with pain as his body clenched up and seized with pain.

Baekhyun collapsed to the ground, putting out the fire on his pant leg which further burnt his palms. He cried out with loud sobs and ripped open the burnt fabric, examining the damage.

The boy was bawling as he looked at the deep burn on his calf, it was red and bleeding with pus filled bubbles on his skin surrounding the opened wound. His hands were welted with burns too.

Baekhyun shoved the collar of his shirt into his mouth to stifle his cries as he crawled over to mud beside him and gingerly set his leg into it. 

It barely numbed the sting of the burn on his skin, the wound did however feel less painful, for only a bit.

Baekhuun stiffened when he heard the sounds of footsteps nearing quickly and many of them. There was only one group that he knew of to have so many people. He cried as he got up, limping to a tree, and with his leg leaking with pus and blood, he climbed up it with all the strength in his body.

_“Twelve!”_

He shivered at the call, adjusting himself on a high branch. Baekhyun gritted his teeth as he tied himself against the branch, leg feeling limp and worthless.

But when he looked down at the approaching group, the pain he was in hurt even less than the pain of his chest when he met chocolate eyes.

Mingyu taunted him, but Baekhyun's eyes were focused on narrowing on Chanyeol. “How’re you doing up there?”

Baekhyun sneered. His eyes looked over Chanyeol, and the younger boy just held his machete tight with a clenched jaw and sad eyes.

“I’m fine.” 

“Then why are you crying,” Mingyu smiled with childlike wonder, “Something wrong? Heard you scream so loud, gave yourself away.” 

“Oh, fuck off!” 

Mingyu growled and tried to climb the tree. “Wait until I get my hands on you, Twelve!”

Baekhyun’s stomach jumped to his throat when Mingyu got a few feet up, but he slipped right back down. He laughed.

 _“Kill him, Mingyu!”_ The District Two girl screamed, “Kill him!”

Baekhyun couldn't help a laugh as he eyed them. District One and Two were here - but he wondered what happened to District Four already. And, of course, he wondered why Chanyeol had the nerve to stare at him.

“I’ll do it myself!” The District One female stated as she pulled her bow off her back. Chaeyoung was different from Mina in the sense that Baekhyun had actually never seen her shoot before, and didn’t know what to expect.

But, he was relieved when what he saw wasn’t much and the arrow flew a good foot past him, right into the leaves of the tree.

“Better luck next time!”

“Give me that,” Mingyu growled, grabbed the bow from Chaeyoung with an angry, set jaw, he set the bow and just as Baekhyun breathed a heavy breath an arrow flew right past him.

Baekhyun laughed, “Maybe you should throw the sword.” 

Immediately, Chanyeol's deep voice was speaking up, “Let’s just wait him out. He’s gotta come down at some point, it’s that or starve to death. Let’s kill him then.”

Baekhyun gritted his teeth as he watched the group agree and begin to set up camp directly below him. He glowered down at Chanyeol and wished he could feel how betrayed he felt. 

But he reminded himself that he wasn’t here for Chanyeol.

He was here for Sehun. And that was all.

(Or so he told himself.)

***

When Baekhyun fluttered his eyes open it was early morning. And immediately he heard a soft shushing noise and looked at the tree next to him.

Zitao stared at him before pointing to a branch above Baekhyun’s head.

Baekhyun licked his dry lips and looked where the boy was pointing, and nearby, he saw a tracker jacker nest. It emitted a low hum of a sound, the tracker jackers buzzing around.

Tracker jackets were experiments created in the Capitol. They were inspired by wasps, but were genetically engineered to attack anything that touches their nest or disturbs it.

With a small, nervous nod, Baekhyun took out the knife and began sawing at the branch. He hissed and let out small whimpers as three tracker jackers stung his hand. 

Once the tree branch was hanging on by a thread, Baekhyun pushed it off of the tree as hard as he could.

Screaming sounded as soon as the nest of tracker jackers hit the ground and the nest exploded with an impact of hundreds of bugs flying out and angrily placing the blame onto the people lying on the forest floor.

_"Tracker jackers!"_

_"The lake! To the lake!”_

Chaeyoung fell to the ground, covered in stings, her face swelling up like a balloon as the group abandoned her to die by the bugs.

Baekhyun cried as he climbed down, exhausted, his head tilting at the pain everywhere in his body. Sobs wracked through him as he collapsed onto the base of the tree.

And almost ironically, once on the forest floor, a tiny parachute carrying burn ointment dropped in front of him. It was tiny and in a metal tin, but he couldn’t believe someone had sent him a sponsor gift as he picked it up, opened it, and skimmed the top with his fingers.

“Minseok. Thank you.”

Baekhyun laughed and took more, becoming woozy from the wasp stings, as he covered his hands and leg with it. The burns were beginning to heal rapidly, closing before his eyes only with a tingling on his skin.

Baekhyun hated the Capitol, but right now he certainly enjoyed their medicine.

With a goofy laugh he grabbed the archery set off of Chaeyoung’s corpse. His body was getting heavy, and he laughed as he looked at the nest of the tracker jackers. It was completely empty, the bugs had long flown away after taking their victim, but Baekhyun was giggling with droopy, tired eyes anyway.

The sting of a tracker jacker could cause hallucinations, so when Chanyeol appeared in front of him, Baekhyun was half high as he laughed and reached out to him.

“Baek! _What are you still doing here? Are you mad? Get up! Get up! Run!”_

Chanyeol took his face in his hands and shook his cheeks rapidly, eyes blown wide, _“Baekhyun, run!”_

Baekhyun could barely recognize that the hands on his face were, in fact, real and took off in a run. 

Things became real when he looked over his shoulder only to see Chanyeol get stabbed in the thigh as he made an escape from a red faced Mingyu.

Once out of sight, Baekhyun stumbled to the ground from the run, feeling light headed and giggly, almost as if he hadn’t witnessed or didn’t know what he’d just _done._ He’s killed someone and yet the poison in his veins made him feel weightless.

Then, Baekhyun blacked out on the dirt floor.

***

Baekhyun screamed when he woke up from a nightmare. It was nearly sunset, which meant he’d slept an entire day away. He huffed out a pant and took the water bottle from his backpack to drink out of it.

Only briefly recalling what happened before he passed out, Baekhyun felt around his face and frowned at the leaves on his skin and littered his neck.

A rustle was heard and Baekhyun reached out for his knife instantly, hand digging around the handle.

But when he spotted Zitao, the tiny twelve year old, he put his guard down. “You know, they’re not the only ones that can form alliances.”

Zitao peeked out from behind the bush with a frown. “You want me for an ally?”

“Why not? You saved me from those tracker jackers. You’re smart enough to stay alive. And I can’t seem to shake you anyway. Are you hungry? I can spare some food.”

Zitao laughed shyly and stepped out into the open. “I can fix your stings.”

Baekhyun smiled and sat into the leaves again, “Can you? How?”

The boy pulled out a handful of leaves from his jacket as he walked over carefully.

“Where did you find those?”

“Just around. We all carry them when we work in the orchards. They left a lot of nests there. There are a lot here, too.” Zitao shrugged.

Baekhyun smiled at the boy carefully, “Oh yeah, you live in District Eleven. Agriculture. Orchards, huh? That must be how you can fly around the trees like you got wings. Well, come on, then. Are you gonna fix me up?” 

They smiled at each other as Zitao took care of his stings.

Baekhyun sighed happily and pulled out the jar of burn cream, spreading it on his leg before making eye contact with the younger. “Did you need some?”

Zitao sheepishly shows a small burn on his arm and the elder immediately rubbed some cream onto it.

“You have good sponsors.” The boy commented as he watched his burn heal.

“I’m seen as brave.” Baekhyun frowned, “Don't know why, but I guess so.” He added, pulling out a pack of crackers and giving half to the younger boy.

“This is the most food I’ve had ever, being in the Capitol.” Zitao beamed, accepting the crackers with both hands.

Baekhyun frowned and gave him some more, eating in silence for a few moments. “I’d think that since you live in the agriculture and farming district you’d get tons of food to eat.”

“Oh, no. We’re not allowed to eat any of the crops. The mayor’s very strict about that. But, sometimes, we get a small ration.”

_It seemed the districts weren’t so different._

“What happens if you eat the crops you grow?” Baekhyun wondered.

“They whip you and make the whole town watch.”

Baekhyun wanted to throw up at that knowledge. Sure, it happened in District Twelve too, but mostly people stayed out of eachothers way - even the Peacekeepers would buy things that weren’t allowed to be sold at their market. Like Baekhyun's illegal hunts.

“Well, then, this is your lucky day. Take _whatever_ you want. Now that I have my bow and arrows, I can hunt for virtually anything. Plus, I know how to set up snares. And I can gather, maybe fish. So, I think we’re okay. I’m sure you’re way better than me at gathering and harvesting. Maybe even growing plants, too. We’re definitely good to go.”

“I hope you win, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun felt his chest hurt at how genuine the younger was. “Why do you say that?”

“I can feel it, it’s a good feeling.” 

Baekhyun had no response to that, but he did lean over to set his own crackers down on Zitao’s lap before bringing his knees closer to himself. 

“How long was I asleep?”

“Couple of days. I changed your leaves twice.”

“Thank you. So what happened while I was out?”

“The girl from One and the boy from Ten.” 

Baekhyun’s shoulders tensed up as he whispered his next question, “And the uh…and the boy from my district?” 

“Yeah, he’s okay. I think he’s down by the river.”

Relief filled Baekhyun as he swallowed and watched the boy eat up.

Zitao gave a silly smile before sitting back to look at him, “Is all of that true?”

“What?”

“You and him?”

Baekhyun snorted and leaned over to tug on Zitao’s ear playfully, “Get your nose out of my business.” He teased the boy, shaking his head.

Zitao huffed a fake sigh before reaching over Baekhyun's lap for the backpack, digging for more snacks.

“Oh.” The boy commented as he pulled out the glasses. “These let you see in the dark.” Baekhyun hummed, having not even tried out the glasses.

“The careers have them too, actually all of the supplies are in the Cornucopia, but they’re guarded.”

At the knowledge the elder sat up and shoved jerky into the younger's hand. “They have all the food?” Zitao nodded in confirmation, mewling at the jerky sticking out of his mouth.

“That’s not fair.” Baekhyun frowned, “We have to work for food, but they just have it. This is the Hunger Games.”

“But they aren’t hungry.” Zitao chewed on his jerky, words slightly muffled.

“No, they’re not. That’s the problem. I think we’re going to have to fix that, Zitao.”

***

Baekhyun learned that Zitao was the youngest in a family of two older siblings, and that thought sat with him all night.

_How could a family member just let him go?_

He was twelve years old, well, Zitao said soon he would be thirteen, but the thought seemed worthless information at the time, until it _didn’t._ And Baekhyun had spent all day finding him a nice rabbit for his birthday, as if such a thing mattered.

But maybe it did. It reminded him that it was Chanyeol’s birthday too, soon, yet he didn’t know how long he’d been here anymore.

Zitao wasn’t the best at tracking days, and he’d been out for at least a handful already.

But for the first night in a while, Baekhyun felt relaxed with Zitao under his chin and clutched to him in a way Sehun would do. 

Like he belonged right under his chin. Like he felt safe.

And the boy was so exhausted that Baekhyun wondered if Zitao hadn’t slept a wink, so he’d held him tighter, because he was afraid _too._ But he also was no twelve year old surrounded by much older people that could easily be stomped over and left without a care in the world.

It was unfair. But so were many things.

“Now this green stuff is gonna smoke like crazy, so soon as you light it, move on to the next fire. Light this one last and I’ll meet you back over there.” Baekhyun instructed, bringing over the last stack of leaves to set into one of their many piles.

They needed a lure to bring the careers out so Baekhyun could sneak into their camp, and Zitao was a genius.

“Right. We need a signal, in case one of us gets held up.”

“Okay. Like what?”

“Here, watch this.” Zitao murmured, glancing at the pin on Baekhyun’s coat before lifting his head to whistle a three toned tune, and in an instant birds sang it back to him.

“Mockingjays. That’s great.” Baekhyun whispered.

“Back home we use them to signal all the time.” Zitao murmured with a grin. “They never forget to sing it back.” 

Baekhyun laughed and reached over to ruffle his hair before sighing and pulling the boy into his chest, “Hey, I’ll see you for supper.”

_“Okay.”_

And then they separated. Baekhyun was off to run towards the careers supplies at the Cornucopia not too far away, but when he got there it was different than he expected.

What he thought was that Zitao meant it was guarded by people - which it was - only a single person, but instead there were land mines in the ground in a complete circle around it.

Baekhyun didn’t spare the District Three tribute more than a glance as he crouched down behind bushes.

On top of the stack of food, he saw an opened bag of apples.

He put an arrow on his bow, aimed carefully, and tried to shoot it at the apples. He barely missed the first time. But, determined, tried again. So close, yet so far.

“One more try.” He whispered. 

The arrow knocked the apples over, all of them falling down and rolling in different places.

“Yes-“ His happiness only lasted a second before a huge explosion happened. The food was blasted to nothing, black filled the air.

Baekhyun was blown far back. 

His head was spinning as he got up, wobbly and disoriented. He tripped over his own feet, falling onto the muddy floor before getting up and trying again, falling many times. 

Something was rolling down the side of his neck and when he reached up to feel it he found that his left ear was bleeding.

And he couldn’t hear from it.

Baekhyun tripped over a tree one last time and blacked out.

***

_“Baekhyun!”_

_“Baekhyun!”_

_“Help!”_

_“Baekhyun, help me!”_

Baekhyun stumbled to his feet and began to run. His body was dusted in dirt from the explosion and as he ran he came to realize that his left ear wasn’t ringing like his right one still was.

He was hearing nothing from his left ear _._

“Zitao!” Baekhyun yelled and ran through the trees, blood drying on his ear.

_“Baekhyun!”_

Baekhyun felt his heart would burst out of his chest as he jumped over tree roots and obstacles, arms pumping at his sides and incredibly disoriented. 

When he followed the yells, he was met with Zitao trapped inside of a net on the ground, panic in his voice.

“Hey! Hey!” Baekhyun ran over and yanked it off of him, “Sh, sh, it’s okay! It’s okay!” He sighed with relief and dropped to his knees to hug Zitao to his chest, “You're okay -“

 _“Baekhyun!”_ Zitao screamed and pointed over his shoulder.

Baekhyun spun around with his bow raised just as the boy from District One had his spear raised and threw it.

An arrow pierced through the boy's chest as the spear raced past Baekhyun, and he was relieved until he heard a wet gurgle and his veins were full of fear.

_“B-Baek-“_

“No!” Baekhyun screamed, crying as he grabbed Zitao before he fell over, the spear was sticking straight out of his chest, “No.. no..” 

He scrambled to remove the weapon and hold his hands over the wound, but it was more than clear that this was no small wound. Red soaked his palms and he clenched his jaw as tears rolled down his cheeks. “You're okay. It’s okay, sh, sh.” 

“Did you blow up the food?”

Baekhyun’s face contorted as he watched Zitao go pale, shushing as he brushed his hair back, “Every bit of it.”

Zitao smiled with closed eyes, red staining his mouth, “Good. You h-have to win.”

Baekhyun sobbed and turned to look at the boy who’d shot Zitao, swallowing down his anger when Zitao coughed bloodily and placed a hand on top of his. “Can you sing?”

He was surprised that in his last moments Zitao would remember such a minuscule detail that Baekhyun had told him - that he liked to sing for Sehun.

_“Okay.”_

Baekhyun leaned down to gently press his forehead against the boy’s, feeling the sticky, drying of blood on his hands. 

“Deep in the meadow, under the willow. A bit of grass, a soft green pillow.

Lay down your head and close your sleepy eyes. And when they open, the sun will rise.

Here it’s safe, here it’s warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm.

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true.

Here’s the place where I love you.

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away. A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray.

Forget your woes and let your troubles lay, and when again it’s morning they’ll wash away.

Here it’s safe, here it’s warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm.

Here your dreams are sweet, and tomorrow brings them true.

_Here’s the place where I love you.”_

Baekhyun was reduced to sobs as he leaned over Zitao’s body, the drying blood caked to his hands as he pet the boy's face.

_How dare someone do this?_

Baekhyun couldn't help but think that right here, right now was the way they wanted tributes to feel. This was _entertaining_ for the people - to watch them die. 

He didn’t want Zitao’s death to be entertaining for them at all. Because it wasn’t. Zitao was only twelve years old.

“He was a kid!” Baekhyun sat back to scream, voice torn out from his throat as he stood up and yelled. “You can’t have _him!_ … please..” 

He heaved with cries before wiping his cheeks clean of tears, taking a deep breath and stalking over to a bush of flowers and taking anything he saw, anything pretty.

The small aircraft that took dead tributes was hovering around and awaiting a chance to get near, but Baekhyun was still too close for them to swoop down and take his body.

Baekhyun didn’t care. He _wasn’t_ finished yet.

This wouldn’t be a show for them. If they wanted a show they could look away, because now they would witness a _funeral._ They wouldn’t see him disregarding the body of someone he considered a _friend._

Baekhyun stood back with his chin trembling to look at how seemingly _alive_ Zitao looked when covered in flowers.

Not a spot of blood in sight.

With a jaw clenched, Baekhyun snatched his bow off the ground and had to turn away. There wasn’t much he could do now. He’d done all he could.

Just an hour before, Zitao had told him what his favorite thing in the world was, and it was so innocent of him to reply: _music._ And the laugh he let out would resonate inside Baekhyun’s mind forever.

Baekhyun was stalking through the forest with little to no motivation to continue, because the most worthy person of winning was now _dead._

In a way, he wondered if his attachment was because of Zitao being the same age as his own brother - but even if it was the reason, then what did it matter? Shouldn’t anyone feel bad when a child dies?

_“Attention tributes. Attention. The regulation acquiring a single victor has been suspended. From now on, two victors may be crowned if both originate from the same district. This will be the only announcement.”_

Baekhyun stopped. 

_Chanyeol._

“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun took off down towards the river, walking along a row of bushes when he heard a soft beeping.

He sucked in a breath and looked up to find a parachute and small sponsor gift making its way down on the dirt floor in front of him. 

His first thought was that it was a gift from Minseok letting him know he was heading in the right direction.

But when he opened the small container he was met with bread rolls, not ones he’d seen before. Baekhyun made a confused noise and tucked the container into his bag before continuing down the side of the hill towards water.

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun murmured as he slipped a bit and grabbed onto a rock to climb onto the rocky edge of the river. 

The action forced him to see his filthy, bloodied hands and he had to force his eyes shut for a second before jumping down off the rocks to stick his hands into the river.

“Get off, get _off…”_ Baekhyun scrubbed at his hands, clenching his jaw.

Just as he had pushed his sleeves back to scrub his arms there was a groan nearby. 

Not one that made him reach for his bow, but one that made his hair stand up and eyes widen.

 _“Chanyeol?”_ He hissed and jumped up, “Chanyeol.” 

The groaning led him to the riverbank where Baekhyun went to step on a pile of mud and a soft, hoarse, _“Baek,”_ rang out that stopped him.

“Oh my god, Chanyeol!” Baekhyun dropped onto his knees as the pile of mud began to move. “Ch-Chan!” He laughed in disbelief and pushed the mud off of his face.

“Oh, this is amazing,” Baekhyun laughed and grabbed his hands to sit him up, “Did you hear the news?” 

“Y-Yeah…” Chanyeol said hoarsely, “But I couldn’t.. g-go look…” 

Baekhyun yanked his bag off his shoulders, “What happened?” 

“Mingyu - my leg…” Chanyeol grabbed the bottle Baekhyun handed over as the smaller turned to cupped hands with water from the river and wiped it onto Chanyeol’s cheeks.

“We have to get out of here, okay?” 

***

“Here. Take this.” Baekhyun ordered, pressing the tin of bread into Chanyeol’s hand and fixing his own coat behind Chanyeol's head.

He’d managed to clean Chanyeol off and help him limp to a nearby cave, but other than that it was clear that the situation was much worse than he thought. 

Chanyeol was burning up, his leg wound went down to bone, and he was starving and dehydrated.

“Baekhyun.” 

Baekhyun didn’t acknowledge him, he just continued ripping the hole in Chanyeol’s jeans open more to look at the wound.

“Baek.”

 _“No i'm not gonna leave you here!”_ Baekhyun yelled, turning his head to narrow eyes on Chanyeol, “Shut up and _eat.”_

Chanyeol had a fervish tint to his cheeks, he was sweating despite Baekhyun just having cleaned him with ice cold water. 

Baekhyun huffed and breathed heavily. “Don't be stupid.” 

“Where… where’d you get this?” Chanyeol whispered, picking up a piece of bread.

“Sponsor.” Baekhyun grunted out as he cut off a strip of his shirt to use as a dressing.

“It’s weird that District Eleven would send you their bread.” 

Baekhyun froze and settled back onto his bottom to look at Chanyeol, wrapping his arms around his own waist. “Eleven? How do you know?”

“Eleven has all of these grains,” Chanyeol rambled, “And this is grain bread, once my mom had someone request it at the bakery. I’m positive it’s from Eleven.” 

Baekhyun sighed and dropped his head into his hands, fingers going to touch his left ear because he wasn’t even sure it was _there_ anymore. He heard nothing from it and kept finding himself tilting the right side of his head towards Chanyeol just to hear him.

“Remember the boy? Zitao?” 

“Yeah.” 

“He just…” Baekhyun clenched and unclenched his hand as if that would explain anything and then simply nodded, “Gone…” 

Chanyeol stayed silent before nodding and laying flat on the cold floor of the cave, his wound was pus filled and infected, but there wasn’t anything Baekhyun could do that he hadn’t already done.

“Lay down,” Chanyeol whispered, tugging the edge of Baekhyun’s pant leg, “Come here.” 

Baekhyun swallowed and straightened out his top before reluctantly laying down beside him. “I didn’t mean for him to die.” 

“Sh.. Baek..” 

“He just _listened to me,”_ Baekhyun cried, pressing his face into Chanyeol’s ribs, “He should’ve won. He should’ve-“

 _“Baekhyun.”_ Chanyeol hissed and brought an arm under his head, tips of his fingers brushing over his right ear. “Stop.” 

Baekhyun sat up with a sniff to meet Chanyeol’s eyes, nose running, blood still dry on his ear as he leaned over to grab Chanyeol’s cheek, “I’m not gonna let you die too, I won’t - I won’t kill you too, okay? I ca-“

Chanyeol sat up to press his mouth onto Baekhyun’s, holding his cheek still and allowing his parted lips to meet the elders.

Baekhyun stopped crying to hold his breath, fingers clutching Chanyeol’s shirt over his chest. 

“You know,” Chanyeol whispered, lips lightly brushing across Baekhyun’s, noses touching, “I can’t tell if I'm going delirious or if you kissed me back.” 

Baekhyun laughed, before pressing into Chanyeol’s nose with a sob-like noise as he clutched his head, “Missed you. Oh, Ch-Chanyeol…” He cried and dug his face into the others hair, “I’m gonna get you medicine.” 

“Baek. I don’t get many parachutes.” 

“I’ll figure something out.” 

“Like what?”

Baekhyun sniffled and leaned down to kiss his lips, brushing fingers on Chanyeol’s cheeks, _“Something.”_

Almost immediately Chanyeol’s eyes shut and Baekhyun pet his hair back and helped him lay down against his coat. 

“Go to sleep,” Baekhyun shushed, watching Chanyeol shiver despite being completely feverish and gently massaging his hand, “I’ll sing you a song, Yeol.” 

***

Baekhyun snuck out of the cave when Chanyeol was asleep the next morning intending to hunt, but instead found a parachute beeping right outside of their temporary home.

He instantly unclipped the metal bucket that was attached to the gift and nearly cried as he opened up the tin and found a note: _you call that a kiss - Minseok_

He laughed before doing a slight jump of excitement and turning to run inside of the cave.

“Chan, get up. Get up-“ 

Baekhyun dropped to his knees and laughed as he popped open the tin, it had a bowl of soup and even a piece of bread inside.

Chanyeol desperately needed these things, and knowing Minseok he was hoping there was medicine inside the food. His note implied they could earn bigger and better things, and also reminded Baekhyun that this was a show, and viewers just wanted to see emotional things.

Looking into his and Chanyeol’s relationship seemed to interest them. So Baekhyun knew he needed to stop being shy and do whatever he needed to - this was life or _death._

“Baby.” Baekhyun shuffled onto his knees with a blush from saying such a thing, popping off the plastic spoon from the lid of the tin, “Medicine.” 

Chanyeol was groggy, his fever seemed even worse as he leaned up to accept a slurp of soup, “Thank you.” 

Baekhyun shushed him, “Just eat. Don't talk.” He whispered, turning to dig into his backpack for his water bottle when there was a hoarse and tired, “I think about that all the time.”

Baekhyun stiffened and turned to look down at him again, fingers fiddling with the cap of the bottle. 

“And about how my mom hit me for burning all that bread,” Chanyeol laughed, eyes half hooded and smiling, “I felt… so bad, it was burnt. Half of it wasn’t even edible… I should have gone to you with better bread-“

“Sh, sh. No,” Baekhyun soothed and reached over for his cheeks, leaning closer, “You feel so hot right now so you’re just overthinking. Just breathe, Chanyeol.. breathe.” 

“I remember the first time I saw you, when we were little,” Chanyeol continued, “And I remember when you… you sang in music assembly, the teacher said _who knows The Valley song?_ And your hand shot straight up. After that, I watched you going home every day. Every day.” 

Baekhyun looked away with a hand over his mouth to stop from crying. He wasn’t sure what this feeling was - whether it was guilt, or overwhelming happiness. It.. somehow _hurt._

“Say something,” Chanyeol requested, “Please.” 

Baekhyun grabbed his hair and leaned over his lap with a rocking motion back and forth and watery eyes flickering over Chanyeol’s wounds. 

“Why would you t-tell me _now?”_ He cried, eyes meeting his leg, and the cuts all over Chanyeol’s arms. He was pretty sure whatever was happening inside the wound was festering and it was _killing_ him.

“I was scared.” 

_“You_ were scared,” Baekhyun laughed tearfully and turned to run his nose as he looked at Chanyeol, “I was just from the Seam - _I_ was scared, Chanyeol… how… how would you react to me coming over to someone like you, we…” He swallowed and shook his head, “Doesn't matter now.” 

“It doesn’t?” 

Baekhyun shook his head and leaned over to lay beside Chanyeol, “We can only live in the _now.”_

He felt a pressure against his hair and looked up to receive the second kiss onto his forehead, closing his eyes and listening to Chanyeol’s rough breathing. 

He was just about to sit up and have Chanyeol eat more when the speakers popped in the arena, _“Attention, tributes. Attention. Commencing at sunrise, there will be a feast tomorrow at the Cornucopia. This will be no ordinary occasion, each of you need something desperately and we plan to be generous hosts.”_

Baekhyun sat back and went wide eyed as he looked at Chanyeol. “Your medicine.”

“You’re not going alone.” Chanyeol said firmly.

“Yeah, you need it and you can’t walk.”

“Baekhyun, you’re not gonna risk your life for me. I’m not gonna let you!” 

Baekhyun furrowed his brows, “You would do it for me. Wouldn’t you?” 

Chanyeol’s eyes shook back and forth before he sighed and whispered, “Why are you doing this?”

Baekhyun swallowed hard before grabbing around his jaw and leaning down to press their lips together, moving his mouth against Chanyeol’s with soft noises. Both of their lips were cracked and dry, but it hardly mattered. All that mattered was he felt most comfortable with Chanyeol by his side.

 _“Now there’s no way I’m letting you go.”_ Chanyeol whispered against his mouth, chocolate eyes shooting open, “Please. Stay.”

“Okay. I’ll stay.” Baekhyun lied, curling his fingers around Chanyeol's wrist, “Let me go get some more water.” He requested, pressing another kiss onto his mouth before pulling away.

Chanyeol had no say in it, but he smacked his lips from dehydration and Baekhyun was up and out of the cave in an instant with their metal bottle in hand.

 _“Come on, Minseok,”_ He whispered, kneeling down to the edge of the river to get water.

Not only was he worried about how weak Chanyeol was, but he wondered and was _hoping_ the other didn’t drink water straight from the river. Knowing the Capitol, they probably laced it with parasites.

Baekhyun had iodine this whole time, but Chanyeol had nothing. 

Just as he expected, within a few minutes of sitting outside of the cave in the dark, he was sent a parachute.

“Oh thank you,” Baekhyun whispered and pulled out the vial of sleeping syrup. This ought to keep Chanyeol out for a while.

Minseok must have promised someone a show from him in order to get them this.

He quickly looked around for something to douse with the syrup and found blueberries growing around the side of the cave, knowing Chanyeol wouldn’t let him feed him all of them, Baekhyun smeared a bit of berry juice on his own lip before placing the syrup on the rest.

 _“Chanyeol, look!”_ He smiled and climbed back into the hideout, “Look, try these. They’re sugar berries.” 

“Huh?” 

Baekhyun snuck two into his mouth and watched Chanyeol eye the spot of berry juice on his lip before he accepted a few more.

“This tastes familiar,” Chanyeol frowned, “It’s so sweet.” 

“They're good, huh?” Baekhyun cooed and shoved another in his mouth.

That time Chanyeol's eyes began to droop a bit and he licked his lips before flickering his eyes to look at him, “Wait, this tastes like sleepin-” 

Baekhyun leaned over to collect him before he passed out hard against the cave floor. The last thing Chanyeol needed was a head injury on top of everything else.

Guilt flooded him as he tugged his jacket on and grabbed his bow, but this was what he needed to do.

Chanyeol was _dying._ And Baekhyun wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for a cannon to go off for him. 

***

This “feast” at the Cornucopia was a table lined with four bags. Just as Baekhyun is surveying the area the girl from District Five ran out and snatched her bag before quickly making a run off.

Baekhyun didn’t know her name, but remembered her being good at knowing plants apart during training.

He looked around a bit before rushing out, arms bent and legs heavy as he ran out to grab his bag.

Just as he grabbed it, a knife flew past his forehead and left a huge gash that immediately began to bleed heavily. 

He jumped back, the bag hanging from his wrist as he brought his bow up to shoot at Mina, breath catching when he missed.

Baekhyun turned to run away, the dry grass crackling under his feet, but he didn’t get far before a weight landed on his back and he screamed as Mina took him to the ground.

He rolled over to try and kick her off but instead used his arms as a shield as Mina grinned sinisterly and dug her knife under his chin. 

“Where’s lover boy?”

Baekhyun screamed and kicked at her legs.

“Oh, I see. You were gonna help him.” Mina laughed and tsked at him, “Well that’s _sweet!_ Well, it’s too bad that you couldn’t help your little friend. That little boy, what was his name again? Zitao? Yeah, well we killed him. And now, we’re gonna kill you-“

Mina was lifted off of him and Baekhyun immediately scrambled back with wide eyes at the sight of the elder District Eleven tribute.

Baekhyun had heard very much about Yibo from Zitao, so he knew they had known each other well.

It was obvious in the rage in Yibo’s eyes as he effortlessly pinned Mina to the Cornucopia. “You killed him?”

“No!”

“I heard you! You said his name!”

“Mingyu!”

Baekhyun sat there with his mouth agape as Yibo slammed Mina into the metal wall of the Cornucopia, her body went limp after only a few smacks against the metal and Baekhyun found himself shaking when the larger teen looked at him next. 

Yibo looked like a mad man as he pointed a finger at him, “Just this time Twelve! For Tao.” 

Baekhyun nodded as fast as he could and grabbed his bag before turning to run into the forest, blood dripping down from his temple, steps growing tired from blood loss.

The last thing he did was stick Chanyeol with the syringe from the bag before passing out onto the hard, cold cave floor.

***

When Baekhyun woke up, it was to the sound of a cannon firing.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go.” 

Baekhyun gritted his teeth and reached up to feel the bandage on his head, he was sore all over, but cleaned up now.

“Who is it?” Baekhyun asked, climbing onto his knees to try and look out of the cave.

“Yibo.” Chanyeol murmured across the cave, “Assuming Mingyu caught up to him… Mina was up in the sky last night, anything you want to say about that? Or about _drugging me?”_

“Yeah.” Baekhyun whispered and turned around to look at him, eyeing Chanyeol who looked so much better, his skin wasn’t as deathly pale and his lips had color to them again. “You're welcome.” 

Chanyeol snorted and shook his head before offering a pink colored bread out towards him, “This came while you were out.” 

Baekhyun didn’t care about the bread right now, instead he shuffled over and wrapped his hands around Chanyeol's leg to look at the wound. 

“It’s so much better.” Chanyeol commented.

Baekhyun gasped and sat up to cup his face, laughing, “We can go home. We’re the only team left.” 

Chanyeol looked like he hadn’t considered that and grinned as he leaned forward to press their faces together. “We can go home.” 

The elder laughed in disbelief and pressed a swift kiss onto mouth before standing up and grabbing Chanyeol’s coat to throw to him, “Let’s go home.” 

***

“Mingyu is gonna be by the Cornucopia, he’s not gonna go someplace he doesn’t know. Five, she could be anywhere.”

“We should probably hunt around here. We don’t have any food left.” Baekhyun murmured, looking down at Chanyeol's hand that kept unsurely brushing against his own.

“Okay. I’ll take the bow.” Chanyeol said firmly, putting a hand out.

Baekhyun laughed and shoved his arm, “In your dreams.” 

“I _guess_ I’ll just use the knife you gave me.” 

Baekhyun smiled and watched Chanyeol limp the opposite direction. He snorted and walked off with his bow out, immediately seeing a squirrel run up the side of a tree.

The sound of a cannon going off was what ruined his moment, ringing in his right ear and then his heart dropped into his stomach.

 _“Chanyeol!”_ He screamed and ran to where Chanyeol disappeared off to. It wasn’t hard to find him, his leg was heavy and still hurt, so Chanyeol couldn’t get too far.

“You okay?” Chanyeol gasped, looking down at him when Baekhyun ran right into his chest. 

Baekhyun sighed and grabbed his coat, “I heard the cannon. You scared me!”

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whispered and lifted his hand up, “I found these-“

“That’s nightlock, Chanyeol!” He screamed and hit the berries out of his hand, “You’d be dead in a minute!”

Chanyeol's jaw dropped and he reached over to hug him, “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” 

Baekhyun took a deep breath and pulled back to look him over once more, brushing a hand over Chanyeol’s cheek before grabbing his hand. “Come on.” 

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol repeated, squeezing his hand and following along, “This… this isn’t how I thought things would be.” 

“How did you think they would be?” 

“I thought…” Chanyeol shook his head. “I thought I would be dead by now.” 

“Don't say that,” Baekhyun said firmly.

“Well it’s true I have little to no survival skills…” Chanyeol trailed off and for a moment Baekhyun didn’t know why until he looked at him and followed his vision.

The District Five girl was on the ground, pale colored and turning blue, her lips were painted purple.

“Well there was the cannon,” Baekhyun whispered and bent down to inspect her for weapons, grabbing her bag. 

“I….” 

It occured to Baekhyun that up until now there hadn’t been much violence on Chanyeol’s part, he hadn’t had to fight much because he’d been hidden in the background most of the time.

It was guilt that took over Chanyeol’s voice, and the feeling of pity filled Baekhyun’s chest because Chanyeol’s heart was much too soft.

“Do you think Mingyu likes berries?” Baekhyun asked, grabbing the nightlock from the girl’s hand.

***

The forest was awfully quiet as they hunted around and the sky had been going dark for the past half hour. And not in a natural way. 

“What time is it?”

“A little after noon.”

“Why is it getting so dark?” Chanyeol wondered aloud, hobbling slightly.

“They must be in a hurry to end it.” Baekhyun answered, turning around to check on Chanyeol. “How’s your leg?” 

“Feels like hell.” 

“Sounds better than normal.” 

Chanyeol laughed and Baekhyun snorted as he offered him a hand to help him over a tall log, he wondered what exactly was wrong with it seeing as it was mostly healed up. Maybe it just needed more time to heal.

“We’ll get you taken care of,” Baekhyun whispered, looking up at him with a slight beam in his eye, raising his chin, “Okay?”

Chanyeol had the prettiest smile. Even with dirt on his skin and dried blood on him, he was so handsome.

Just as Chanyeol grabbed his cheeks and leaned down to kiss him the sound of running was heard, but not a person, like something with four legs, and something _heavy._

“Run!” Baekhyun yanked on Chanyeol’s arm and pushed him in front of him, “Go!”

He knew it must hurt an awful lot to run with his bad leg, but they had no choice.

The trees flew past them in a blur and when Baekhyun turned to look over his shoulder he screamed at the huge, wolf like creature that was chasing them.

_They sent mutts after them._

Baekhyun was in disbelief, he knew that the Gamemakers could send muttations after them, but normally not like these. Tracker jackers and mockingjays tended to be the only sort of muttations in the games. 

Mockingjays were an accidental creation, a harmless thing made by the Capitol, and yet these _wolves_ weren’t.

They were there to kill them.

“Baek!” Chanyeol screamed as they made it to the clearing, running up to the metal cornucopia and grabbing the side of the abstract shaped roof, “Come on!” 

Baekhyun breathed heavily as fear filled his veins at the wet snarling behind them, helping push Chanyeol’s leg up and over the platform before throwing himself up. 

“Mutts,” Baekhyun murmured and looked down off the platform. They had familiar eyes, but Baekhyun couldn’t place things in time because suddenly he was shoved to the ground and hit in the face.

_“Stop!”_

He heard Chanyeol yell and when Baekhyun flipped over he was met with the sight of Chanyeol wrestling Mingyu on the top of the cornucopia, delivering hits to the District Two tribute.

“Stop!” Baekhyun yelled, raising his bow the second he heard Chanyeol yell out in pain with Mingyu trying to throw him off the side and feed him to the mutts.

Mingyu had an arm wrapped tightly around Chanyeol's throat, and Baekhyun saw that once again Chanyeol's leg was bleeding profusely.

“Do it!” Mingyu screamed, blood dripping down his brow, “Go on, shoot. And we’d both go down and you’d win.”

Baekhyun swallowed and looked at Chanyeol who just fought against Mingyu’s grip. 

“Go on. I’m dead anyway! I always was, right? I didn’t know that until now. Isn’t that what _they_ want, huh? No! I can still do this. I can still do this. One more kill. It’s the only thing I know how to do. Bring pride to my district. Not that it matters.” 

Baekhyun can see in Mingyu’s eye the realization of what these Games are, and it nearly fills him with pity to see that in his final moments is when he realizes that he was only a player in a _Game._

Other than this, he is nothing. He means nothing to the Capitol. 

And in a sorrowful way, Baekhyun wishes Mingyu didn’t have to realize that now. 

Because he wouldn’t let him kill Chanyeol. 

Baekhyun raised his bow and shot Mingyu directly into the back of Mingyu’s hand that was around Chanyeol's neck. The shock from the attack made him loosen his grip and scream.

And Chanyeol pushed him off into the pit of mutts.

Baekhyun didn’t know if it was pain he felt, he didn’t know if it was necessarily guilt either, but when Mingyu screamed and cried and _begged_ to be killed, Baekhyun took pity on him and raised his bow to shoot in between the mutts at Mingyu’s head.

A cannon rang out, the mutts ran away,, and Baekhyun dropped to his knees on the metal roof, abandoning his bow and wrapping his arms around his knees.

Arms wrapped around his shoulders and Baekhyun heard Chanyeol’s rough breathing in his ear as he leaned into his temple.

“Come on,” Chanyeol murmured, tugging his sleeve.

Baekhyun sucked up his tears and remembered Chanyeol was injured, so he needed to help him.

He tossed his bow off the side before climbing down himself, trying to help Chanyeol down by being there in case he got wobbly.

_“Attention.”_

Baekhyun jumped and wrapped his arms around Chanyeol's waist as they made it to the grass.

_“Attention, tributes. There’s been a slight rule change. The previous revision allowing for two victories from the same district has been revoked. Only one victor may be crowned. Good luck. And may the odds be ever in your favor.”_

Shock filled his bones. Baekhyun’s mouth opened and closed a few times before his expression pulled together with pure _anger._

Chanyeol pulled away from him, his expression down fallen, face pale, yet he smiled a little. “Go ahead. One of us should go home. One of us has to die, they have to have their victor.” 

“No.” Baekhyun frowned instantly, hands clenching, “They don’t. Why should they?”

“No!” Chanyeol reached over to try and hit the berries from his hand when Baekhyun pulled them out, but the elder shushed him and grabbed his cheek.

“Trust me. Trust me.” Baekhyun whispered, petting his cheek. “It’s okay.” 

Chanyeol's eyes were filled with tears as Baekhyun poured some nightlock into his palm, he reached over to pet Baekhyun’s hair gently with his other hand. “Together?” 

Baekhyun swallowed and looked up at him, closing his eyes at the kiss pressed to his forehead. “Together.” He confirmed.

“Okay,” Chanyeol held his berries filled hand up beside Baekhyun's, “One.” 

“Two.” 

“Three-“

_“Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games.”_

Baekhyun grabbed onto Chanyeol and refused to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler for those that don’t know the hunger games, but I need a vote! 
> 
> Let me know if you want Chan or Baek to be the mockingjay
> 
> (Aka which one should be kidnapped and tortured lmao)


	3. The Hunger Games: Aftermath

_ “When they ask, you say you couldn’t help yourself. You are so in love with this boy that the thought of not being with him was unthinkable. You…you’d rather die than not be with him. You understand?” _

_ “You made them look weak. You made their rules look changeable.”  _

_ “You have to convince them everything you did was out of love, not out of anger, not out of rebellion. The fact that you don’t even know what you’ve done is what worries me.”  _

_ “Baek, are you listening? Baek- Baekhyun? Baekhyun? Baekhyun-“ _

Baekhyun awoke with a shrill scream, soaked in sweat. 

His chest was racing and when he rolled over he noticed Chanyeol was still dead asleep beside him. He always tended to sleep deeply, like nothing could wake him up.

But he told Baekhyun he was allowed to wake him up. That he  _ should  _ wake him up when he was afraid.

Baekhyun didn’t want to bother him too much, they were both sleeping a lot since they’d only just moved into Victors Village.

It was an area of District Twelve with one inhabitant.  _ Minseok.  _

And now there were five counting Baekhyun’s brother and mother and themselves.

Chanyeol hadn’t once mentioned even going to see his family since they’d gotten back, and Baekhyun hadn’t even known what the others' plan was until they both stepped foot into the gated community of Victor's Village and were too scared to separate.

All it took was Chanyeol smiling sheepishly and asking if Baekhyun would like to share one of the homes and then they were inseparable.

It was hard not to be considering all they’d been through.

Plus, their house was humongous. Baekhyun would probably go crazy if he lived alone, but in such a huge house he would’ve lost it within a day.

Chanyeol's leg was fixed for the most part, but the bone had been so infected that the surgeons suggested amputation. In the end, Chanyeol chose to keep it and instead have metal rods put in, which slowed him down, but it was much better than not having a leg.

Baekhyun’s ear was taken care of too, but whenever he thought about it too much he was reminded that he had gone  _ deaf  _ in his left ear and it was entirely the Capitol’s fault.

Now he just wanted to relax; he wished he could calm down and find things he enjoyed to do like Chanyeol was trying to do, but Baekhyun had “attachment issues” as Minseok had so  _ helpfully  _ put it.

Baekhyun was really just afraid. He was scared of letting Chanyeol go too far and when he saw Sehun at first he clung so badly that even his mother commented on it.

People were trying to help him form a routine. He tried to stick to one too; he tried to walk across the street to what was originally  _ Chanyeol's  _ house, but was now his own family’s, and walk Sehun to and from school.

But even that didn’t work out sometimes.

Sometimes Baekhyun caught a glimpse of someone watching his and Chanyeol’s after-show interview where he’d been shaking with fear from what Minseok had told him.

About how  _ angry  _ the president was with them.

How he made the Capitol look foolish because a measly  _ Seam  _ boy had been able to bend the rules in his own favor.

Baekhyun heard that with Zitao’s death, with his own reaction to it, came waves of protests in the districts.

He hadn’t meant for all that to happen, but now that’s what the president thought he’d meant to do - that he’d meant to destroy the Capitol. 

When the truth was simple. He’d wanted Zitao to live. Just like he wanted Chanyeol to live. And he’d wanted all of those other tributes to live  _ too. _

Baekhyun thought they didn’t deserve to die, but even those words that sat in the privacy of his own mind were laced with the undertone of  _ rebellion.  _ And for that thought alone he could never say them aloud.

“Hey…” Baekhyun whispered and shifted to roll over and pet Chanyeol's cheek, bringing a hand to comb through his hair, “Chan…” 

When Chanyeol blinked awake with a tired noise Baekhyun felt more guilty and nuzzled into his nose with sad eyes. “I’m sorry…” 

“No-“ Chanyeol cleared his throat before shuffling a bit closer to wrap an arm around Baekhyun’s chest, tugging him effortlessly closer. “No, it’s okay. I know. I get them too.” 

The past three weeks Chanyeol had been way more productive than him. He had hobbies that were much less triggering than Baekhyun’s own. Like painting.

And recently, he’d begun to work out and train by himself; Baekhyun found it strange at first, but he never questioned Chanyeol too much. 

He just assumed that maybe Chanyeol’s own way of accepting what they’d done was to make sure he was stronger in the future. And if that meant physically, then Baekhyun wasn’t going to stop him from doing what he liked.

In the end, it was still  _ Chanyeol. _

Baekhyun wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t notice the certain  _ ticks  _ and small grimaces of pain Chanyeol did every once in a while, but he normally just squeezed his hand because he was a million times  _ worse  _ than Chanyeol, and yet Chanyeol still wanted to be near him.

“But most of them are about losing you,” Chanyeol admitted, brushing his nose against Baekhyun’s. 

Baekhyun took in a deep breath and he wished he could say the same, but his nightmares weren’t always about losing Chanyeol - sometimes they were just  _ memories -  _ and having to relive those moments always made him scream just as loud as he did when he dreamed that his own arrow hadn’t hit Mingyu’s hand and instead hit Chanyeol's throat. 

The thought of hurting Chanyeol hurt him so much, but the thought of what he had done to so many other people just like them, just trying to survive, left him unable to forget a moment of their Games.

Even if sometimes he forgot himself in Chanyeol and his dimpled smile, and in how hard the younger tried to make him get out of bed for a bit. 

Baekhyun noticed, and he knew why Chanyeol was doing these things. The feelings were mutual despite what the president thought, Baekhyun  _ had  _ done what he did with the thought of wanting to learn to love Chanyeol rather than the thought of rebellion.

But it seemed Baekhyun’s own selfish wants made him blind, so he couldn’t see how he’d wronged the Capitol. In his mind it was all about justice and seeking it for the victims of the Games. 

Maybe he did that in Zitao. Maybe, in a way, he gave justice to the little boy who just wanted a good meal.

He didn’t know, but when he thought too hard about it, he began to see his own hands stained with red again, so Baekhyun tried not to.

“Happy birthday,” Baekhyun whispered, pushing Chanyeol's hair off his temple and kissing his lips gently. “I’m sorry to wake you up.” 

“Stop apologizing,” Chanyeol murmured groggily into his forehead and closed his eyes again as he pressed his nose into Baekhyun’s hair, “I’m here for you. Always.” 

***

_ “That’s really good, Hunnie. Really good.”  _

_ “Do you think my mom would let me hang it up?” _

_ “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her later. If not, then I’m sure Baek wouldn’t mind if we hung it up here.”  _

Baekhyun rubbed his eye as he climbed down the stairs, he’d meant to wake up sooner and prepare Chanyeol breakfast, but after the morning he’d had he woke up late and it was already dinner time. 

“What are you two doing?” He asked, straightening out his shirt and peering into the living room only to laugh.

Sehun had blue paint splattered all over his cheek and Chanyeol looked only a little better because it wasn’t all over his skin, but on his shirt.

“Baek!” Sehun laughed in a childish, wide grinned way, “Chanyeol told me I could stay the night!”

“Did he?” Baekhyun mused, raising a brow and leaning against the archway, “You're just here for cake, aren't you?”

“I do like cake…” 

“Go put your coat on and have mom take you to pick it up, would you?” Baekhyun suggested, crossing his arms over his stomach, “Say hello to Mrs. Park for us, okay?” 

_ “Baek…”  _ Chanyeol murmured awkwardly, blushing.

Baekhyun just hummed and brushed a hand over Sehun's hair as his brother burst towards the front door to attack the coat rack.

“Don't forget your scarf!” Baekhyun yelled, still staring at Chanyeol as he heard Sehun’s frantic dressing. “And your earmuffs, it’s cold!” 

_ “Ugh.”  _ He heard Sehun whine.

“Hey!” The elder yipped without even having a scowl, but his tone was enough to show his firmness, “I bought those for you so put them to use until they have holes, bug.” 

With all the money he now had Baekhyun felt pretty… overwhelmed. That was a simple way to put it, and in another way, he felt completely guilty to have all this money.

That was why he made sure his first idea was to dig through his brother's things and see what he needed - Sehun was pouty when he’d caught him - but he had calmed down when Baekhyun told him he was going to buy him new stuff.

Sehun had never gotten a new  _ anything  _ before, so it was a bit painful to see how excited his brother had gotten.

The front door slammed shut and Baekhyun rolled his eyes when he heard Sehun yell a  _ sorry  _ from outside. 

“Come on,” Baekhyun jerked his head towards the kitchen and turned to walk inside. “Let me start your dinner.” 

“Baek,” Chanyeol murmured quietly, “You don’t need to-“

“You make dinner every night.” 

“Yeah, but you start shaking when you look at the knives,” Chanyeol replied as he came into the kitchen and took a seat at the island.

Baekhyun stiffened for a second, eyes flickering over the knife holder before he shrugged and made his way to the fridge, “I’ll make you something that I don't need to cut up,” He said to himself.

Chanyeol laughed and it was more of a sheepish sound than Baekhyun was used to, it made the elder smile a bit and breathe a relieved noise as he pulled meat from the fridge.

“Did you go to the market earlier?” Baekhyun wondered.

“Well... I was going to cook for you while you were sleeping. I know you don’t feel well today and, you know...” 

Baekhyun smiled and shook his fondly as he began to dig around the kitchen - it was so big he wasn’t used to it, and when they’d gotten here it was completely stocked up, and Chanyeol was normally the one to cook so he didn’t get a chance to dig through things yet. 

“Baek…”

“Hm?”

“Are we a couple now? Like a real couple?” 

Baekhyun's smile fell as he spun around to address Chanyeol, face smoothed out but brow furrowed as he reached over the counter to cup his cheek, “Why do you feel like you need to ask that, baby?” 

“I…” Chanyeol wrung his hands together before sighing and dropping his eyes onto the countertop, “Well, Baekhyun, you never paid me any attention before so… an-and I don’t want you to feel like  _ stuck  _ with me, because.. I like you more than you like me, that’s just not-“

He was cut off by Baekhyun leaning over the table to press a kiss to his mouth, holding his chin firmly.

It made Baekhyun realize that this was probably the first time since they’d gotten back into District Twelve that he’d done so.

They slept in the same bed, took care of each other, but Baekhyun was so busy worrying sick that he hadn’t taken a step back to realize  _ Chanyeol  _ may feel neglected. And they didn’t really discuss anything about the Games, not really, what they did say had been live on television and full of lies and fake smiles during their victory interview.

It made him sick to even think about.

“I do like you,” Baekhyun promised under his breath, wrapping fingers around his jaw and gently petting a scar under Chanyeol's cheekbone. “I’m not good at talking, but I do care about you, Chanyeol.” 

Chanyeol sighed and Baekhyun pet his hair back and pressed a kiss to his forehead, watching for a moment as the younger tiredly leaned into the affection. 

“Hey..” Baekhyun murmured, frowning, “I’m not going anywhere… I.. I think we should stay together, no matter what… I didn’t lie about anything I said inside the arena. I always wanted to thank you, and at the time I didn’t have time to feel, and I understand what you meant now when you wanted me to acknowledge my own feelings. I  _ do,  _ and that’s what I want, I want to stay with you.” 

Chanyeol looked up at him with relief on his face and with a small smile that made Baekhyun laugh and lean over to press another kiss to his mouth before pulling back, “Go have fun. Let me make you dinner.”

“But- okay…” Chanyeol changed his argument the second Baekhyun raised brows at him, standing from his spot, “I’ll go… paint or something…” 

“Good, you do that. Happy birthday, Chanyeol.” 

***

Baekhyun was incredibly bothered by something lately. It really wasn’t something he should think about nor wanted to, but it bothered him.

Sehun was big. Well, he was bigger than he remembered him to be.

There was something nearly angering about the fact Baekhyun had missed months with his brother over something that wasn’t his choice.

Sehun looked different. He had this stone cold and blank expression most of the time these days, and it bothered Baekhyun even if his brother was still sweet and kind.

It was almost as if Sehun knew too  _ much,  _ and Baekhyun didn’t want him to know much of anything when it had to do with the Games, so it made him upset being unable to hide things from his brother.

“Well maybe you can teach me how to shoot a bow again in winter.” 

“I won’t be here for winter,” Baekhyun whispered, knelt down and tying his animal trap at the base of a tree. “And we tried that four times, it’s okay. You don’t like to hurt animals, it’s fine, we don’t need to really even hunt anymore… I’m just out here… to be out here, Hunnie.” 

It was never easy to sneak into the forest past the fence, let alone with Sehun on his tail, but his brother was being the clingy one today and followed him right out to the woods.

“Why won’t you be here?” 

Baekhyun licked his lips and sat down on the cold grass to face his brother. Sehun just continued tossing small rocks across the grassy plain. “We have to do the Victory Tour then… I.. I have no choice-“

“You really don’t fight at all do you?”

Baekhyun’s brows pulled together as Sehun turned to look at him, “Huh?”

The younger boy shook his head with a slight scowl, “Is that why Minseok says not to be so happy that you’re back? Because you don’t fight and then have to keep going back to those stupid people in the Capitol?”

Baekhyun felt like he’d been electrocuted, and he’d once experienced what that felt like back when the fence that separated the forest and District Twelve still had power to it.

It stunk and singed and reminded him that Sehun wasn’t exactly blinded to what was going on.

“Since when have you been talking with Minseok?”

“Since we moved in,” Sehun sighed and looked so small as he pulled his knees close and looked at Baekhyun with eyes unlike a twelve year olds. “Baek. He says you’re in some kind of trouble and that’s why you have to do things, but I think you should tell them  _ no -  _ I mean… they already took you away once, for months, I don’t want you to go again - or Chanyeol - Mom says that Chanyeol only came out of the Games because of you… I think everyone says that really… I think that’s why he doesn’t go out much. I don’t want either of you to leave again…” 

“Don't say those things.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I said so!” Baekhyun exploded, scaring the birds in their area off as his face turned red, “If you say stuff like that, then you  _ will  _ die! Do you understand me? Don’t you  _ ever  _ let anyone hear you say things like that. People will think…”

“That I’m a rebel?” 

Baekhyun outright hissed and leaned over to grab Sehun and yank him into his chest, “Where did you hear about rebels?” 

“... when you were in the Games,” The younger whispered, words muffled into Baekhyun’s chest, “You gave them an opportunity. People want things to change now. They don’t want to send their kids to the Games. They don’t want anyone to starve… I don’t think you understand what you and Chanyeol have done. People look up to you.”

Baekhyun swallowed and pretended he wasn’t teary-eyed as he smoothed Sehun's hair down and kissed his head. “I never asked for people to look up to me, bug.” He said gently.

“It doesn’t matter.” Sehun argued quietly, “You do. And you have a responsibility to those people. Minseok says you’re important. I think so too.”

***

Chanyeol wasn’t good with knives. He wasn’t good with axes or spears, but it was odd… because Baekhyun found out he was pretty good with bows.

That, or he just had an amazing teacher.

“A bit higher,” Baekhyun whispered into Chanyeol’s ear, pressed into his back from where they were crouched down in the grass, chin pressed to the younger’s shoulder, “That’s it, sweetheart. Shoot whenever you think it’s clear.” 

Chanyeol made an acknowledging noise, his nose was red from the cold, his fur hat pulled over his ears, then he sniffled, eyes focused on the rabbit a few yards away.

Baekhyun couldn’t help himself from petting the hair sneaking out of his hat back and gently smoothing a hand across Chanyeol's spine, “Go for it.” 

The sound of the arrow flying - the quick piercing sound of it flying through the air - stabbed through Baekhyun’s head like a hot blade.

Without any thought, without any intention, and without any control of himself he jerked back into a pile of frosted leaves with a shrill scream, the sound echoing down the hill.

His throat felt dry from the cold air and his skin began to crawl as he looked at his hands and found them  _ red  _ with blood. The noise. The memory. The screaming -  _ Baekhyun! Baekhyun! Baekhyun! Help me! Help! _

“Tao…” Baekhyun cried, hands grasping his eyes and clawing at his skin accidentally in his hurry to cover his eyes, shaking back and forth and sobbing.

_ “Baek! Baek, baby! Hey, hey! Sh. No. I’m here. I’m here.”  _

Baekhyun screamed as Chanyeol pulled his hands off his eyes, the old wooden bow sitting abandoned on the icy grass.

“Hey, sh, I’m here.” Chanyeol whispered and tugged him into his arms, locking Baekhyun between his knees and placing his chin onto soft brown hair. “Sh sh, I’m here. I know.” 

“I-I’m sorry ‘m sorry. ‘m so sorry.” Baekhyun whispered, curling a fist into Chanyeol’s coat and breathing loud and heavy, “I just…” 

“Don't you ever apologize. Not to me. Not to anyone.” Fingers pet the back of his head and Baekhyun sucked in handfuls of air, breathing into Chanyeol’s chest. “Breathe and calm down.” 

“I…  _ can’t breathe..”  _ Baekhyun wheezed, face turning red.

Chanyeol squeezed him tighter, shifting Baekhyun onto his lap and balling the smaller up, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m not.” 

“Baek, listen to my voice. Okay? I’m gonna… I’m…” Chanyeol laughed in an embarrassed way, fingers lingering around Baekhyun’s temple, “I’m gonna sing you something.”

Baekhyun didn’t reply, too busy shaking, but Chanyeol expected as much. So the younger cleared his throat with obvious nervousness written on his face, then began to rock Baekhyun side to side.

“Are you, are you coming to the tree? They strung up a man they say who murdered three… strange things did happen here-“

Baekhyun cranked his head up with glossy eyes, voice hoarse and nose running. Disbelief painted his features as he wondered why Chanyeol would choose such a sad thing to sing to him.

Such a  _ rebellious  _ thing.

_ “- no stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree…”  _ Baekhyun whispered, half singing and half sniffling.

“Well,” Chanyeol stopped and muttered, loosening his grip to lean down and kiss his raw nose, “You certainly sing much better than me.” 

The elder laughed a small bit before wrapping his arms around Chanyeol's bicep, pressing his cheek against his arm and snuggling into his coat, “My dad used to sing it to me.”

“It’s a song of revolt, and yet your dad sang it to you when you were little?” Chanyeol wondered, voice hushed. “Maybe he knew you were special.” 

At the comment Baekhyun swallowed hard and wanted to argue that Chanyeol was  _ certainly _ more special than him. 

Chanyeol was genuinely kind. Not only kind when he needed to be, like Baekhyun. He was overwhelmingly sweet, not actively antisocial like Baekhyun. 

Chanyeol was entirely more deserving than he was, and Baekhyun couldn’t be convinced otherwise. And yet.. a part of him was grateful to be here, with him. But the other part of him reminded him that it was only for a short time, and then they would be leashed up and taken around for show as the Capitol’s dolls again.. 

Baekhyun sighed and pressed a kiss to his arm through his coat before shifting to stand up, wiggling his fingers towards Chanyeol in offering. “Did you hit the rabbit?”

“I did.” 

“You’re doing amazing. Go get it and we can have it for dinner.” 

Chanyeol shifted on his feet before he smiled sheepishly and pressed a kiss to Baekhyun’s head, “Okay, bunny.” 

Baekhyun’s nose scrunched up as he laughed and his cheeks heated up, but before he could comment the larger was retreating to climb down the hill and the elder was left to wrap arms around himself and stare after him fondly.

_ Bunny, huh?  _

Baekhyun liked the nickname a lot. 

But he liked Chanyeol much more.

***

Sehun convinced him to get a hobby. Between having nightmares and constantly waking Chanyeol up with his screaming, Baekhyun had begun to practically sleep wherever he sat.

So, he was basically forced into reading. 

Watching the television risked catching Capitol people talking about his Games, or showing the events, and going outside risked too many eyes on him.

_ Reading _ seemed like the only safe suggestion his brother had given. So Baekhyun agreed to read until he was tired and ready for bed, which could take hours some nights.

“Do you want me to turn off the light?” Baekhyun asked for what felt like the millionth time, worrying, as he chewed on his lip and twisted to look at Chanyeol.

The younger already seemed half out, lying on his front with his face beside Baekhyun’s hip, upper half exposed to show off all the lines of scars from lying against rocks for three days in the Games.

The Capitol had fancy tools that could clean up wounds in an instant, but even then some things couldn’t magically be healed - like the scars on Chanyeol’s legs and back, and one on his cheek.

Or how Baekhyun had a scar hiding under his bangs and even more along his thigh. He hated those ones the most, the bubbly looking skin reminded him of the  _ heat  _ of the fireballs that hit him, and made him want to climb something to hide away.

(He wouldn’t, because he knew how much that would scare everyone.)

Chanyeol was muscular now and taking up much more space than Baekhyun remembered. It was nice to see him getting healthier.

“Huh? No, no, I’m good,” Chanyeol murmured, eyes closed as he brought an arm around Baekhyun’s stomach and his fingertips brushed his exposed hipbone. 

“Okay, baby,” Baekhyun mumbled, reaching a hand over to pet his hair.

Such an action made Chanyeol tiredly preen and within a few minutes of the petting Baekhyun had a head laying on his stomach and his fingers tangled in Chanyeol’s long locks.

He didn’t mind Chanyeol growing his hair out, that was a nice change too. 

Basically anything that the Capitol knew of them they wanted to change, and whatever they’d done to Baekhyun’s hair made it permanently curly so he couldn’t change that, but Chanyeol could certainly grow out his hair since they’d chopped it off without his consent. 

Baekhyun struggled to lay his book to rest against the side table so he could use only one hand to change pages, trying to stay quiet so Chanyeol could rest some.

The book he was reading was one Minseok had given him. It was strange because he had no idea when he and Sehun had become friends, but his brother ranted and raved about how their mom was helping his mentor with sobriety so that explained a lot.

Baekhyun hadn’t spoken to his mother much, but he never really did more than needed anyway.

There was a swirl of guilt in his core when he thought of how disconnected he was from the woman that birthed him, and he knew he should forgive her for the years of her being spaced out, but he couldn’t bring himself to - he wasn’t Sehun who had a gentle heart.

“... weird.” Baekhyun whispered, brows pulling together as his eyes ran across the page.

“Chanyeol,” He murmured. “Did you know that Jabberjays were meant to spy on the districts during the Dark Days, but the districts found out and fed them false information,” He read from the page, “That's how Jabberjays ended up becoming Mockingjays. The Capitol released them into the wild, because their plan failed.” 

He shifted to look down at Chanyeol for a response, but all he was met with was a scrunched up face of pain and gentle breathing.

Chanyeol didn't normally have nightmares, but he did have moments.

Baekhyun sighed and pet fingers down his forehead to the tip of his nose a few times, until his expression calmed down and he breathed easier.

The smaller shut his book and shifted a bit in order to position himself to watch Chanyeol for signs of fearful sleeping. 

“Get some sleep, baby,” Baekhyun soothed, scratching Chanyeol's scalp with adoring eyes, “I’m right here. Always.” 

***

Chanyeol was productive today. Extra productive. 

It was storming out, really badly, and still Chanyeol had made loaves of bread and took himself across the street to give one to Minseok and another to Sehun and Baekhyun’s mother. 

Baekhyun had practically lost his mind when he woke up to the storm and caught Chanyeol coming back in without gloves on and not in proper snow clothing.

Chanyeol could be a bit short sighted when he was busy caring for others, but that was okay, because Baekhyun found solace in looking out for him.

It was only fair, Chanyeol looked out for  _ everyone.  _ He cared for too many people too soon, and Baekhyun could never bring himself to tell Chanyeol that maybe he should be more selfish.

Being selfish just wasn't in Chanyeol's nature.

And neither was being  _ untalented _ , because Chanyeol was amazing at so much.

Baekhyun just liked to spend his time watching him. That's how he felt most comfortable - when knowing Chanyeol was safe - and he felt absolutely  _ worry free  _ when Sehun was running around here too, preferably sleeping with his head across Baekhyun's lap or helping Chanyeol cook.

Sehun rambled like he didn’t need air when he was excited, and it filled the silence their house normally had; recently all he wanted to talk about was how their mom was teaching him to be a medic, like she once was.

Baekhyun didn’t know how to feel about that, but he always smiled brightly for Sehun.

“Did you hear that the deer you caught fed over ten people?” Baekhyun commented abruptly, chin pressing into the back of the couch as he looked into the room over.

The double sliding doors of the entryway were open and Chanyeol was facing him with an easel set up and paint splatter on his black top. 

“Did it really?” Chanyeol's grin spread across his cheeks, the dimples on his cheeks dug incredibly deep, “That's amazing. When the weather is better we should find another one and give it away again.” 

Baekhyun smiled and fiddled with a string hanging off his shirt sleeve, “I should take you down to the underground market, Yeol. You can buy some more paints without feeling so guilty about the Capitol ones..”

“Baek. We should go, let’s take Sehun one of these days.” Chanyeol replied with a pretty smile.

Baekhyun knew Chanyeol felt guilty when he'd bought his painting supplies, because the ones sold in their main market were Capitol goods.

The truth was Baekhyun had never even had enough money to enter that market by town square, it was overpriced and hard to get your hands on things, but it was  _ legal. _

He preferred to buy from the market in the Seam. That way he would support local workers, and people that literally were starving and on their last leg. 

It had been difficult to go anywhere without peacekeepers on their tail for a while in the beginning though, so they had played it off and just went to the actual market. But now that it was stormy and cold, it didn’t seem like the guards wanted to do much but hang around fires and look the other way.

Baekhyun huffed out a soft laugh and twisted around properly to jump off the couch and walk into the room intending on seeing what Chanyeol was making.

Only he was met with a colorful hand stopping him and a pout, “Bunny, you have to wait.” 

Baekhyun giggled, “Why's that?” He mused, grabbing his hand and playfully pressing a kiss to a clean area of his knuckles.

“Um… it’s not done!” 

“That's okay, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun brushed off with a smile, coming under Chanyeol's arm to squeeze himself in and leaning against his side, “You know I like all of your…” 

He trailed off, tongue tied and throat feeling dry.

Baekhyun’s expression turned slightly grim as he looked at the canvas. 

It was pretty. Gorgeous even. The landscape Chanyeol was painting was full of vibrant flowers and trees. The river that was running along the bottom was rocky and a soft blue. He got all the details right down to the moss growing on top of the rocks.

“I told you… I-I didn’t want to show you these ones… I’m making you nicer ones…” Chanyeol trailed off nervously.

“Can I see the others?” Baekhyun whispered with a blank tone, arms pulled close to himself and eyes unmoving from the painting.

“I… okay,” Chanyeol relented with a sigh and turned to walk towards a chest in the corner. 

Baekhyun clenched his fists into his long sleeves as he turned to watch Chanyeol pull out a handful of small canvases.

“Are you upset?” 

Baekhyun frowned and instantly shook his head, taking a seat on the carpet beside him and reaching out for the paintings, “What? No… no, baby. I’m not upset. I’m just surprised.” 

“I just… remember these things,” Chanyeol whispered sheepishly, “From the Games… I mean.. I didn’t want to show you them because it’s not fair, you had a horrible time there, and then I just laid there or hid behind others-“

“There is no  _ fair  _ for people like us,” Baekhyun argued, teeth clenching as he ran his fingers over a painting that looked  _ identical  _ to the tree he'd climbed up into to hide from Mingyu during the Games.

Only it was missing blood sitting on the branches from Baekhyun climbing up with a burned leg, and it was missing him, sitting recklessly on it and sobbing in pain.

Like this, when he knew that's all it was… it was just a  _ tree.  _

And it didn’t hurt him. Or scare him. 

It was just a tree, and it was beautiful. Like Chanyeol, who could see beauty in such madness.

“Does it make you feel better?” Baekhyun asked, raising his head to meet eyes with Chanyeol, fiddling with the canvas boards.

Chanyeol looked to be thinking it over, nose scrunching a bit, brow furrowed, a line of yellow paint across his cheek. “Yeah… I guess that in a way seeing it look so…  _ not  _ scary really makes me less afraid. It’s ridiculous,” He laughed humorlessly and shrugged his shoulders, “But it works and it makes me remember that it was just what we thought it was… a Game. It wasn’t the trees or the river or the arena that did this to us, it was the people behind it. But… but when I’m painting these things… I guess it makes me so… I don’t know.” 

_ “Calm.”  _ Baekhyun supplied, “We spent nearly a month out there, Yeol. I think it’s very good if you do this. It was just that - it was a  _ place.  _ And I’d rather have you paint things out than constantly be thinking about it. You…” A smile spread across his face and he shook his head as he leaned over to cup Chanyeol's cheek, “You're a genius, Chan.” 

Chanyeol's eyes got very big when he was happy, and they twinkled when Baekhyun pressed a kiss to his nose and leaned back.

“You really like them?”

“I love them.” Baekhyun corrected, sitting up on his knees to set the small boards back into the box before a thought occurred to him and he bit his lip. “Can you paint me something, Yeol? If I give you the description.” 

“Oh! Of course.” 

“Can you paint me a part of the forest?” Baekhyun whispered, “And a lot of flowers, I’ll tell you how it looks and everything.” 

If Chanyeol realized what he was getting at, he didn’t say it, he just smiled and offered him a hand, “Whatever you want, Baek.” 

***

Chanyeol had his first major incident when Baekhyun had been walking Sehun home from school. The old, worn down building used to be where he sat and waited for his brother everyday, but now it was rare purely because all of the stares from the citizens got under his skin.

Sehun understood. He understood more than a kid his age should. 

So when Baekhyun told him he couldn’t come over and shoved him a bit too hard he hadn’t complained.

Because as soon as they walked up Baekhyun could hear glasses breaking inside and that  _ wasn’t  _ something that occured often. It had never occurred before actually. Chanyeol was well tempered.

But he was still  _ human.  _

“Chanyeol! Yeollie?” Baekhyun called as he walked through the door, yanking his gloves off his hands and twisting the lock on the door, “Chan?”

He heard shuffling and stood up straight to observe the puppy-like eyes that peered sheepishly around the corner into the entryway.

“Hi, baby,” Baekhyun sighed with relief because it seemed Chanyeol was okay -  _ externally.  _ “Did you wake up from a nightmare?” 

Chanyeol's eyes were still puffy from sleep, his shirt all wrinkled up and hair dismayed. “I broke the lamp. I’m sorry.” 

Baekhyun didn’t give a  _ fuck  _ about the lamp, he only cared that Chanyeol was safe and not hurt, so he tsked and rushed over to take his hand and gently pull him out of the living room and into the entryway.

“You aren’t hurt, right?” Baekhyun demanded, petting his arms up to his cheeks, eyes wandering.

“I-it broke everywhere, shattered - I should go clean it-“

“Chanyeol.” The smaller said firmly, wrapping arms around the tallers waist and holding on, sighing into his chest, “I don’t care about the stupid lamp. I want to know if you feel better.” 

Chanyeol slumped against him, making himself smaller as he fit his head into the crook of Baekhyun’s neck and hugged his waist. “I don’t feel better.” 

“Oh,  _ Chan,”  _ Baekhyun whispered, as tight as he could he began to squeeze around Chanyeol's body and running soothing palms up and down his spine, “What happened, baby?” 

“Bad dream.” 

“Mhm. Tell me, it will make you feel better.” 

“I feel better knowing you're here now.” 

Baekhyun felt like his insides melted the moment Chanyeol began to cry, because even through all of this, even inside the Games, Chanyeol didn’t cry.

Not really.

He teared up. He  _ looked  _ like he would cry. Maybe he would shed a tear or two. 

But he didn’t actually cry, not like Baekhyun did.

“I am here,” Baekhyun muttered out, dragging Chanyeol with him until he could lean against the stair railing seeing as Chanyeol was not light - especially not when he'd done nothing but workout since they got home - but he didn’t mind it.

He didn’t mind Chanyeol soaking his shoulder in tears; he didn’t mind having to support his weight; and he certainly didn’t mind being the only person in the world that could understand how he felt.

It wasn’t guilt, pain, or sadness, but it was fear. And it came at them full force, randomly, unrelentingly.

Baekhyun knew whatever they did, they would never be able to come to terms with what they’d done, and somehow the thought of just giving up enveloped him the most at times like these.

“Always.” Baekhyun promised into his temple, pressing a kiss to the side of his face where his tears streamed down his cheek in harsh lines, “Always, baby. I’m going to be here and annoy you for as long as you want.” 

Chanyeol sniffled into his shoulder before he was bending his knees and leaning down to rest his head against Baekhyun’s chest. 

The smaller just let him do what he wanted, but he was incredibly endeared by the ear pressed to his heart. “Let me make you hot chocolate.” 

“You… you figured it out?” Chanyeol blubbered, wet eyes shifting to look at him.

Baekhyun laughed and gently shifted him back only to hold his hand and tug him towards the kitchen, “I found out that it’s just milk and chocolate. I bought some supplies to make it earlier.” 

_ “Really?”  _

Despite the wetness to his voice, the sniffling, and his pink eyes Baekhyun found his excitement adorable and smiled ear to ear. “Of course. We’re going to perfect the recipe, Yeol. And have it every single night.” 

“Promise?” 

“What? That we can have it every night?” Baekhyun smiled.

“Yeah.” 

“I’ll make it for you every night.” He promised.

***

Minseok never invaded their lives too much. In fact, he'd always been a loner, so Baekhyun figured things would always stay that way. 

Sehun didn’t like anyone to be alone though, and seeing as Minseok was sick from withdrawal, his brother dragged him over.

“You look horrible.”

“Wow, it’s amazing that you can even roll out of bed, last I heard you were screaming days and nights away.” 

“That’s just how it is, isn’t it?” Baekhyun replied dryly, wringing out a damp towel, and giving a roll of his eyes, “Sehun, go find Minseok something to eat.” 

“But  _ Baek,  _ I’m reading!”

Baekhyun sighed and turned around to look across the living room to Minseok laying on the couch covered in sweat and Sehun upside down in one of the chairs like he lived here.

Whatever his little brother was up to with Minseok spelled trouble.

“You’re also the one that brought me here so-“

The front door swung open and Baekhyun felt all the tenseness in his body relax at Chanyeol shaking the snow out of his hair and the paper bag in his hand. 

“Chanyeol!” Sehun screamed, shifting to sit correctly in his chair. Baekhyun wasn’t jealous that Chanyeol got a lot of his brother's attention, because Chanyeol never had someone to look up to him before.

He knew it made him happy. 

“I brought dinner,” Chanyeol murmured, cheeks blotchy from the cold and sniffling before he added, “Why is everyone looking at me?” 

Baekhyun snickered and walked over to press the folded, damp cloth onto Minseok’s forehead. 

“We’re just hungry!” Sehun cried, Baekhyun could hear his loud footsteps as he burst across the room.

“Are you gonna puke on me?” Baekhyun worried, “Because I will walk out right now.” 

Minseok looked like he wanted to hit him, but he just grumbled and shoved him back as he sat up, “Well you sure know how to treat a sick person.” 

“It’s better than being sick alone, let me tell you that,” Chanyeol cut in quietly, walking across the room to place a hand on Baekhyun’s spine, “Baek is pretty gentle.” 

If Baekhyun didn’t know any better he would assume Chanyeol’s actions were protective - but they both knew they wouldn’t be here without all the sponsors Minseok got them - he was no threat.

“Yeah, with  _ you.”  _ The eldest argued, “God, you two make me want to gulp down any alcohol I find. At this rate I’m going to call Jongdae and have him stock me up again.” 

Unlikely. Especially not considering Sehun liked to linger around. The boy was busy chopping up the bread Chanyeol bought in the next room over, Baekhyun couldn’t see him, but he could tell based on the heavy sound of the knife hitting the counter with each cut.

“Seeing us just gets you riled up, huh?” Baekhyun murmured. 

“No. Seeing you reminds me of the impending  _ doom  _ you-“ Minseok cut himself off when he began to go too far, but Baekhyun could still hear the  _ you did this  _ sitting in the back of his throat.

Before he could begin feeling too guilty Baekhyun felt Chanyeol’s kiss his cheek and squeeze him a little. 

“We didn’t mean anything and you know it, Min.” Chanyeol defended, “We’re going to show people what we meant, not some ridiculous rebellion plan.” 

“Look.” Baekhyun cut in, “The truth is you don’t have to like us. You don’t have to even talk to us, but so long as Sehun is here then we’re going to be here - I don’t know what you’ve been telling him, but I know it’s not something he should know. He told me to  _ rebel  _ the other day, Minseok. That’s not something a kid his age should even know. If he goes up to a peacekeeper… I’d he tells them  _ no…  _ god, if you get my little brother hurt I will fucking kill -“

_ “Help! Ow, help!” _

Chanyeol was yanking himself off of Baekhyun as fast as possible, and considering he had a limp Baekhyun had never seen him move so fast, but he beat him into the kitchen before Baekhyun was even done processing Sehun’s yell. 

“Hunnie? Sehun? It’s okay. You're okay….” 

Baekhyun shoved around Chanyeol to see what the fuss was about and instantly he could see why Chanyeol was blocking Sehun with his own body.

“I… it slipped. I’m not good with knives.” 

“That’s fine. Hey, it’s okay.” Chanyeol soothed, holding Sehun's bleeding hand and reaching out for a rag on the counter. He looked up and saw the pure terror written on Baekhyun’s face.

“Is he..” 

“It’s just a cut.” Chanyeol promised, “Baek, stay with us here. It’s only a small cut. His hands are wet so it just looked like a lot.” 

It did look like a lot. Sehun was leaning against the sink and his eyes were glossy, he had his lips pressed together and was in  _ pain. _

Baekhyun could see the red on Chanyeol's hands even though the wound was covered with a clean towel now.

He couldn't do this now. Not in front of Sehun. But the red was pooling and it was watery and it dripped onto the tile and Baekhyun’s heart began to pump loudly- 

_ “Baek, I’m okay.”  _ Sehun spoke up, cringing as Chanyeol dabbed at the cut in his palm. “I’m okay, it just stings.” 

His tone was what helped Baekhyun breathe. It wasn’t hoarse or choked off, nor was it a pant. It was just normal, with a slight tinge of apology. For what, he didn’t know, he just knew Sehun would be okay.

But just the sight of red would give him nightmares later, and he knew it. 

“I found the first aid kit!” Minseok yelled from the living room.

“Go get yourself patched up, kid,” Chanyeol suggested, patting his arm and twisting to wash his hands off.

Sehun made a move to the living room and Baekhyun gnawed on his nail the entire time, worrying. This voice in the back of his head told him to tell Sehun to  _ wait,  _ not to move. To stay completely still.

It was irrational, so he didn’t listen to it.

They weren’t in the Games - but why did it feel so much like it?

“You’re not allowed to cut stuff anymore, bug.” Baekhyun called weakly, sighing and leaning onto his elbows on the counter. “For a medic in training he’s so accident prone.” 

“Well he’s just a kid,” Chanyeol muttered quietly.

“I’m going insane.” 

“No you’re not.” 

“I see the color red and feel like jumping ship, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun argued, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists, “How can we live like this?” 

“We’ll learn how.” The younger promised, reaching over for his hand before he gave himself black eyes from his harsh scrubbing, “For now, we’ll just have to take breaks to breathe every once in a while. Okay? You aren’t going anywhere. When you need a breather just say so.” 

“I want one now.” 

And it was that easy. Chanyeol came around the counter to pull him into a hug and it wasn’t what Baekhyun thought he meant by taking a breather.

But somehow, with his face pressed into Chanyeol’s chest and clutching his top, Baekhyun felt like he could breath a bit better.

***

“Are you going to just keep watching me?” 

Baekhyun smiled, wrapping his arms over his pajamas and watching Chanyeol set his weights down onto the floor. “It’s really late. You should come to bed.” 

Chanyeol did a slight shrug, sweat rolling down his temple and abs on show as he walked across the spare room just in sweatpants to hang the workout equipment up.

They had so many spare rooms these days that Chanyeol had both a hobby room and a room that was slowly collecting gym equipment, but it was hard to get hands on the really high tech workout equipment in their district.

It really wasn't a priority for people to work off calories when they were busy trying to find calories.

Baekhyun licked his lips, “Why are you working out so much?” 

“I want to be strong.” 

“You are strong, baby.” 

_ “No.”  _

Baekhyun’s brows shot up at the intensity of his no, shifting against the doorway before making a move towards him, “What are you talking about, Yeol-“

“We both know I survived because of  _ you.”  _

Baekhyun gritted his teeth and shifted on his feet back and forth, “Chan-“

_ “Stop.”  _ Chanyeol said firmly, not aggressive, but firm, “Baekhyun. I had blood poisoning. I would have died if not for you. If you hadn’t found me…” 

“No.” Baekhyun hissed and reached over to shove his shoulder with a snarl, “Don’t sit here and pretend like I would have got  _ anywhere  _ without you. Chanyeol, if I hadn’t found you… I…” His eyes glossed over and he cupped a hand around Chanyeol's cheek to pull him closer, laying his forehead against damp skin.

They both slumped into each other.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol murmured, wrapping arms around Baekhyun, “But you understand what I mean, right? I want to take care of you like you did me and… with everything going on…” 

Baekhyun dug his nails into the back of Chanyeol’s shoulders, eyes shut tightly. “They’re going to kill us.” 

“I know.” 

“Do you think it’s going to be soon?”

“I don’t know,” Chanyeol sighed and pressed his face into Baekhyun’s hair, words muffled as he pressed a kiss against his temple. “But we’re going to fight. And be together until then. President Lee doesn’t have to believe us, but we did trick them, and I can’t even say I regret it. Not when I can hold you like this, finally. Or when I can wake up and see you this close… even if it’s only for a little while, we’re safe.” 

Baekhyun nodded a handful of times, shifting back to bring his fingers to curl into Chanyeol’s hair, their noses squishing together when Baekhyun locked their lips.

Chanyeol was incredibly warm from working out moments before, but it only made Baekhyun press closer, separating Chanyeol’s lips to taste his mouth.

Normally their kisses were soft and gentle, but with Chanyeol’s hand holding the back of his head Baekhyun couldn’t move away.

He didn’t want to either.

Baekhyun laughed against his mouth as his spine pressed against the doorframe and they both stumbled, his hands latched onto Chanyeol’s shoulder and he felt Chanyeol’s deep laughter against his cheek when he pulled back to breathe.

“I.. can’t hold the both of us up.” Baekhyun blushed and giggled as Chanyeol hovered over him.

“Luckily I can.” 

Baekhyun squeaked and wrapped arms around Chanyeol's neck when he was picked up, laughing loud and leaning into his neck as he curled legs around his narrow waist. 

“If I keep working out, I’ll get better at this,” Chanyeol commented as he grunted when he adjusted Baekhyun’s hips and walked across the room into the living room.

“Maybe I do like you getting stronger then.” 

Chanyeol burst into chuckles and Baekhyun could see his ears turn red and smiled fondly as he pressed a soft kiss to the side of his head. 

Baekhyun’s hair blinded him for a moment when he was dropped down onto the couch, but he just brushed it back and licked his lips when Chanyeol laid over top of him.

The younger didn’t seem to think much of their position, Chanyeol just had a content look in his eye as he placed his elbows beside Baekhyun’s head and brushed fingers through his hair.

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun whispered after a moment, arms wrapping around Chanyeol's neck,  _ “Kiss me.”  _

“If you want me to.” 

Baekhyun eyed his face before cupping his cheek, “Kiss me like you love me.” 

“I do love you.” 

“I don’t know what love is, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun confessed with a nervous glint in his eye, “All I know is love for Sehun, I’ve never loved anyone else before.” 

The implication made Chanyeol's eyes dull and for a moment Baekhyun regretted saying such a thing to him, but he’d never lied to Chanyeol before, not in the Games, and not now.

But after a moment of Chanyeol silently looking him over, he laid a hand on Baekhyun’s temple and shook his head. “That’s okay.” 

The smaller sucked his lip into his mouth, “Is it?” He asked tentatively.

“Of course,” Chanyeol laughed and surged closer to press their lips a centimeter apart, “Because I’m going to wait until you love me back.” 

Baekhyun swallowed down the lump of guilt on his tongue and dug nails into the back of Chanyeol’s shoulders.

What should he say? It would be so painful to admit he wasn’t  _ sure  _ he had the capacity to love someone else. 

And it would be a huge lie if he said he  _ wanted _ to love Chanyeol with everything he had, because the thought of having to unwrap the cold, metal, protective armor from around his heart scared him so much. 

He loved his father, and then he died. He loved his mother, and then she abandoned him. And he loved Sehun, but now there were a million and one things that could happen to his little brother at any given time all because Baekhyun wouldn’t  _ let  _ his brother die.

He was scared because he didn’t want to love more than Sehun, and he didn’t want to care for Chanyeol anymore than he already did.

But the thought of Chanyeol ever getting hurt made his jaw clench, and imagining Chanyeol's face when it was pale and when his lips were blue as they’d begun to turn in the Games made him want to claw his brain out for remembering that. 

Baekhyun cared for too many people now.

And yet he still couldn’t bring himself to tell Chanyeol how scared he was; it would only worry him.

Instead, Baekhyun ran his hand down Chanyeol's back and tilted his head up to brush his lips across the other’s cheek and requested something he never thought he would ever ask. 

“Will you make love to me, Chanyeol? I want to know what it’s like.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😞 sad bois the reason it’s marked done is just because I’m going by each of the different stages of hunger games, so once I start catching fire I’ll unmark it as done etc!


End file.
